Time, for the fickle thing it is
by joenaruhina57
Summary: Thirty-seven-year old Harry Potter looks back on his life and finds how worse the world has become, thus he goes back in time to save his seven-year-old self from an event that changes his life, to entrust his legacy to himself. May sound cheesy, but a different approach. Minor to major Dumbledore and Weasley bashing. Snape Bashing. Grey Harry, time-travel, A-Universe/A-Reality...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **I took the liberty of deleting my story 'Enough is enough' because to be frank, I couldn't see a funny and entertaining path for it as I intended for it when I started it. Initially, I thought of giving it a dark beginning and then slowly turn it into an amusing and entertaining story, so that I thought of capturing the entire sequence of Harry's change from his dark ruthless attitude to a tired yet amusive 'not again' sort of attitude.**

 **As I was thinking of ways to correct it, I came up with a new concept that could capture my intentions for Harry and Hermione's character development as I intended for it. But, I wanted it to be more realistic and entertaining than any of my former attempts at fanfiction stories with more heart to heart conversations and action sequences than just a basic outline of a story that I usually give. To turn a genuinely ' _unbelievable'_ concept into a convincing story, if you know what I mean. So here I am again, trying to give you all another time-travel story that I'm hoping would be a fun read for tired evenings. By the way, this is also indirectly a 'what if' scenario, I decided to give it a try since I've always found the notion of it being a path to a rather sensational plot.**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Snape bashing… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing… And fair warning, it may sound very weird at the beginning, but I'm hoping it will turn out fine later.**

* * *

 ** _Little Whinging (1987, August 6th)-_**

 _'Privet Drive'_ a peaceful looking neighbourhood it was, or so it seemed to be. There were a number of similar looking houses in the same line, each of those houses spaced equally between each other with cars in the driveway and small, neat and well-maintained lawns on the front. As ordinary as this neighbourhood seemed to look, an _unusual_ man was speeding towards the fourth house, something that went completely unnoticed by the inhabitants of the locality.

This man stood over six feet tall, wearing a rather very used looking business outfit; he had dark raven hair that was rather long as it fell over his eyes. Beneath the hair, if one would be to look they would see a long trace of a deep yet faded scar that seemed to range right over the man's right eye. An eye that remained tightly shut, while sporting an intense penetrating look through his other.

This man walked over to the fourth house from the left side entrance of the street and peered through the windows of each room as he walked around the house as a whole. After a few minutes of peering in through the house, he immediately turned around and moved to the left side entrance of the street. He quickened his pace and soon he disappeared from the street as he moved towards the nearby park.

The mysterious man reached the park, a park that was barely furnished with obstacles for children to play. The park itself looked as if it had been neglected for a while, but the man himself was uninterested about the state of the park. The man's left eye landed on a thin, unassuming, raven-haired and green-eyed boy, who was silently sitting on one of the lone swings. This boy was none other than the wizarding world's saviour, Harry Potter. Meanwhile, Harry, who was slowly swinging on his swing, was more interested in the blue sky above than his surroundings, as he was viewing it with his eyes that were filled with both curiosity and wonder.

Harry's life was anything but a life, he was more like a slave to his relatives. He was often starved, verbally abused and sometimes even physically abused for just being unusual or in their terms a 'freak'. Harry was a brilliant and keen boy; he knew that something was wrong with him because strange accidents often happened around him when he was sad, annoyed or terrified, accidents that were anything but normal. Harry was also very cautious, having lived his life with the Dursleys; he was an expert at hiding himself, as such it made him very adept at recognising dark emotions. Years of living with the Dursleys, Dudley in particular, had conditioned Harry to internalise his feelings. A target that refused to react wasn't as much fun to torment, so he had learned how to keep his behaviour neutral even when he was practically seething with bottled-up emotions. Only his eyes would betray him, glinting dangerously whenever he became agitated.

His seventh birthday was only a few days ago and he couldn't help but think of a life with his parents. He had no idea about anything regarding his parents, but frankly, he hoped that anything could be better than the Dursleys' treatment of him.

Subsequently, the man moved towards Harry and spoke as if he certainly knew, "Harry Potter…"

Harry looked up at the voice and his eyes met with the man's single left eye. Harry was instantly scared stiff by this stranger's gruff voice and intense yet eerie stare, as it were something that reminded him of uncle Vernon. All the warning lights blinked in his head, something about this man unnerved and frightened him; however, he kept his reactions neutral.

The man sensing the young boy's fear, the man spoke evenly, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

"Who...are…you?" Harry stuttered back to the man with a gulp.

"Before we get to that, can we go somewhere private and have a chat?" The man asked him evenly.

And that was the last straw for him, this stranger was trouble and somehow deep in his heart, he knew it. He remembered aunt Petunia's warnings to Dudley about interacting with strangers. He slowly stood up from the swing, as if agreeing with the strange man and when the stranger turned to move away, he took a bold start and ran towards his house as fast as his legs could carry him. Meanwhile, the stranger stood there in the park and simply pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, as he watched the waning silhouette of the child, soon he too faded and vanished into thin air.

* * *

 ** _Next Morning (Ten O'clock)-_**

Next Morning, the seven-year-old boy was weeding the lawn in front, there was barely any weed among the lawn's grass, but his aunt didn't want him 'freeloading' inside the house, hence she made him weed the lawn again. Last night his sleep was restless, yesterday's encounter with that stranger had terrified him so much that his paranoia had gotten the best of his much-needed respite.

As he was weeding the lawn under the lukewarm sunlight, he felt a cold breeze pass over him that seemed rather odd for a summer breeze. Something instinctively made him look up and search the surroundings only to find the same scary stranger from yesterday, standing there leaning on the fence while staring at him intently. In fear, Harry's heartbeat sped up instantly, as he watched the man walk up to him as soon as he noticed the man's presence.

"Stop walking…or I'll scream." Harry spoke in a frightened yet brave tone.

Immediately the man stopped at a distance and kneeled one of his legs and then he spoke with a smile, "If I truly meant you any harm, would I risk engaging with you in public while exposing myself like this near your house?"

Harry couldn't understand some of the man's vocabulary, but he did realise the man's general intent. After some deep thought, he decided to give the stranger a chance to explain himself rather than scream and earn his aunt's attention, which will undoubtedly get him in trouble for disturbing her. And above all that he had every reason to suspect that his aunt will most likely just give him up to this stranger and gladly be rid of him, as he knew for a fact that she disliked him.

"Who are you, what do you want?" The child asked loudly trying to overcome his fear.

"Who I am is complicated, while what I want is simple. I want to help you, Harry. I'll explain everything to you and I will make you aware of the truths that were hidden from you."

"What truths…?" Harry again had trouble understanding what the man said, but somehow he found the man's tone to be rather reassuring and the meaning to be innocuous.

"To further explain that…, we _really_ do need to have a talk, alone." The mysterious man replied back to him in a desperate yet urgent tone.

And that again made his suspicious, but since he was giving the man a chance he demanded, "No, not alone. You tell me now."

"Okay, since you're suspicious, I think it's fair enough." The man sighed and then spoke.

"First of all your full name is Harry James Potter, you're the son of James Fleamont Potter and Lily Evans Potter and most importantly you're a wizard, Harry."

"Wizard…? Like a magical wizard?" The young boy asked back astonished by what he has heard.

"Yes…" The man replied sternly.

After a long pause the seven-year-old suddenly shouted out, "You're lying…" and he immediately ran inside the house and _almost_ slammed the door shut.

The mysterious man stood up and again sighed very deeply and then ran both his hands through his messy hair and slightly shook his head in disappointment. And again he simply faded and vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, Harry, who was watching through the gap of the door, looked dumbstruck at the man's sudden disappearance.

* * *

 ** _That Night (Eleven O'clock)-_**

Harry laid thinking on his mattress in the cupboard under the stairs. He was filled with many doubts and questions, questions like 'what the stranger meant by him being a wizard', he thought and 'how was the man able to disappear like that all of a sudden'. 'If he being a wizard was true then does that mean magic indeed existed' and somehow if that was actually true, then all of the unusual things that happened around him were in a way 'justified'. And above that, the man somehow knew his parents' full names which were something even he didn't know. It was all too much for the boy's seven-year-old mind to digest because the boy often kept wondering about his own sanity.

"You're not insane you know." Suddenly the seven-year-old child heard a voice that was too real for him to be imagining it.

Harry sat up on his mattress and pulled the cord of his pull cord light and switched on the lights of his 'makeshift cupboard bedroom'. And when the lights turned on, the first thing he saw shocked him to his core and he screamed like there was no tomorrow.

"You can scream all you want; no one's going to hear." The stranger from the previous instances was sitting cross-legged in mid-air as if levitating.

"Are you going to kill me?" Harry asked terrified by this man, who had extraordinary powers.

"No, I'm here to help you."

The levitating man came down and settled in front of him on top of his legs and that's when he realised that this man was intangible, because his legs went straight through the man's legs.

Now, he had all the more reason to be terrified, "Are you a ghost?"

"I wouldn't call myself a ghost, but more like a wraith that is _temporarily_ bound to this earth."

Harry who was previously terrified was now overly confused, but as instincts took over he screamed again. He still couldn't understand what the man meant to say, but once he stopped screaming he was steady enough to ask another question, "Who are you?"

The man sighed with a smile and replied, "That...is a little complicated to explain, but I really can't see another way to put it. I'm _you_ , thirty years from now."

"Thirty years? Like…from the future…?" The seven-year-old asked in an obvious statement like tone.

"You know, you're very keen for a seven-year-old. And yes, like from the future."

"How do I know that you're speaking of the truth?"

The mysterious man, who just established to young Harry that he was the Harry Potter from the future, said, "What's the colour of your eyes?"

"Green…?" Young Harry spoke unsurely because he has never given himself enough attention to scrutinise his eyes.

"Emerald green, to be precise…" The older Harry then slowly shifted away from his hair from his left eye line and showed the exact same green eye to his younger self.

"Many people do have green eyes, you know." Young Harry said meekly, still sceptical about this ghost being _himself_ who came from the future.

To this, older Harry simply lifted his hair further and displayed the famous Z-shaped scar on the right side of his forehead. "Do the 'many people' have _this_ too?" Older Harry asked rather amused by his younger self's scepticism. He knew that most children at that age wouldn't even understand the notion enough to react to it, but his younger-self was a special case, a rather clever child raised in an abusive environment which made him self-dependant.

"Wow, so you are from the future. How is this even possible?" The child looked at his older self in absolute wonder.

"Well…" As he was about to begin explaining, he was cut off again by yet another question.

"Why did you come back in time?" The boy asked excitedly, as he was fascinated by everything that has transpired.

"To change the course of history…"

"What…?"

"I need to explain, but the explanation is very long and very complicated, so I suggest that you get comfortable because you're in for a very long night." The older man said sporting an amused smile.

And then he placed his intangible right hand on his seven-year-old counterpart's head and used his Legilimency abilities to enhance certain parts of his younger self's mind, in order to give him the ability to understand the complex conversations that they were about to have. It was nothing but a simple matter of adding advanced vocabulary and their corresponding knowledge about those vocabulistics into his younger self's subconscious mind. He did this because he got the feeling that his younger-self had some difficulty understanding his words and his manner of speech. And then he slowly activated certain parts of his younger self's brain, to make sure that his counterpart can understand him. Once it was done he began with his explanation.

* * *

 ** _Four Hours Later-_**

For the last four hours, our time-travelling hero explained many things to his younger counterpart. The thirty-seven-year-old man started with explaining the basics of what happened in his entire life from his birth to Voldemort's attack and then he continued through until his Hogwarts letter. And then he continued with the events from his first year in Hogwarts to his sixth. He then gave a basic outline of the events that happened in his six years of magical schooling. During his explanation, he explained everything about magic, about Dumbledore, Voldemort, the Weasleys, the Order, the Death Eaters, the wizarding world, about its society, about its prejudices and it ideological aspects. He also explained about the Ministry and its various sections, the ICW, Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley, Horizont Alley, Carkitt Market, St Mungo's hospital and much more. After that, he came to the concept of the mundane world, how well the worlds are connected and how well they're hidden in the shadows of one another. And how the pureblood fanatics of the magical world fancy the concept of oppressing and mistreating the muggles and muggleborns and he went on by explaining it from various perspectives.

At first the seven-year-old Harry was really excited to hear about his life, but eventually, the excitement waned as he realised that the magical world wasn't as magical as he thought it might be. And finally he felt like he needed a breather and above that, he felt like he wanted to just sleep as it was a little over three in the morning.

As such the young boy was really annoyed, "It still doesn't explain why you came back in time."

"I haven't come to that part yet." Older Harry admitted and the seven-year-old whined back due to being too tired to listen anymore.

The seven-year-old whined with a rather cute yawn, "Can't we talk again tomorrow?" In return the time traveller simply placed his intangible hand on his younger self's head again and the tiredness and mental exhaustion of the child disappeared almost instantly, and then the man replied, "I only have a couple of days left here, once my magic is spent I'll disappear forever, thus I intend to make the most of this."

"What did you do to me?" The child asked in obvious surprise feeling invigorated.

"It's called Legilimency, I convinced your subconscious mind that you've just woken up from a very restful sleep and that's why you're feeling fine, it's almost like therapy via hypnosis. However you'll have to compensate for it by taking a long, deep and restful sleep later, so keep in mind that you'll have to be in bed around eight tonight."

"But aunt Petunia won't…"

"Don't worry about her; I'll take care of her." The child looked at him in scrutiny but finally agreed with him.

After a short pause, the child asked, "What did you mean by having only a few more days here?"

"To travel through time, I had to push my soul and all of my magic out of my body in one push and then I had to bind them both together and then travel back in time. It's a one-way process, you can push your soul out, but you can't reverse it, so once it's done, it's done. Hence as I travelled here, my body in the future died, therefore my magic won't replenish itself, so once the magic that I have expires, I'll have to move on from this earth."

His younger-self looked down very sadly at his revelation, but he still had a lot to explain and so he decided to change the topic immediately and he asked, "Now where did I leave it?"

The excited seven-year-old who was more than happy about being distracted, he instantly filled in for his older self, "You, Ronald and Hermione retrieved one of the ' _cursed objects'_ ( _Horcrux_ ) from the Ministry employer Umbridge and made it out, but Ron was injured."

"Yes…, on our way out, Yaxley, a death eater followed us through the floo to the Grimmauld place, as a result, the location's safety was compromised, hence as we escaped again, we had to camp outside in a forest. And since Ron was injured, we had to stay in one place and not move around. During the next few days, we learned that we couldn't destroy the object with any curse whatsoever. Henceforth we took it upon ourselves to keep this object safe until we could find a way to destroy it, so we took turns keeping it amongst ourselves."

"Why take turns?"

"The cursed objects that were Voldemort's source of Immortality had some traps set in them too. This cursed item that we were carrying with us at the time; it brings out a person's most negative emotions…, strong feelings like despair, anger, hatred etc. And then it slowly influences them and inclines their personality towards these feelings, making them behave with their worst qualities ever."

"As such two weeks after our skirmish in the Ministry, one morning I had an argument with Hermione; I was keeping the object with me at that time. Due to Ron's injury we couldn't move and we had to cover for Ron with his work and I complained to her about how she wasn't doing enough and that obviously angered her, because she was actually the one who was doing the most work among us all. Bloody hell, she was the sole reason for why we survived that long out in the field. Naturally, she argued back and then finally she made me give the object back to her and she kept it with herself. That very evening she made a breakthrough, she found out how to destroy the cursed object." He then paused for a second and asked inquiringly, "Do you remember me telling you about how I used the sword of Godric Gryffindor to kill that bloody huge snake in my second year?"

"Yes, and you destroyed that cursed diary with one of its teeth."

"Precisely, you see that sword had the snake's venom embedded in it, so it could technically be used to destroy the cursed object and it also explained why Dumbledore left it to me in the will, even when it wasn't his to give, it was a clue. Meanwhile, as I was about to celebrate this discovery, Ron had enough of the quest. Ron yelled at me saying that Dumbledore gave them nothing worthwhile and had us chasing our own tails and among other things he voiced his frustrations, his frustrations were valid because the sword was back in Hogwarts and we were stuck outside, I defended Dumbledore and unsurprisingly the argument escalated very quickly. Before it could turn physical, Hermione interfered and stopped us, but by that time Ron had already made up his mind to leave the quest midway. He quickly packed his things and left, Hermione went after him to try and convince him otherwise, but that's when something expected happened in the most unexpected way."

"What happened…?" Young Harry asked with complete interest.

"Ron was angry at the lack of progress that we were making and also with me. As I told you before, Ron had an inferiority complex due to being born with five brothers and one sister who were all overachieving than him in their own way. Due to him being injured, I and Hermione had to do a lot of his work to compensate for him and so we spent a lot of time together and that made him very jealous of me. Obviously, he mistook our friendship in a totally wrong way, and so as Hermione was trying to convince him, he gave her a choice, to either walk away with him so that they can have a life or to stay with me and fight a war unprepared and most likely die."

"What did she do?" Young Harry asked hoping for the latter.

"She came back to the tent, handed over the cursed object and apologised to me. And then she packed her things...and left with Ron."

"Oh…" Young Harry felt sad at the revelation.

After a short pause, the curious seven-year-old asked in a confused manner, "Why would she leave?" It didn't make any sense to the confused boy, according to his older counterpart's story, Hermione Granger was the most loyal friend he ever had and a friend like that leaving him was impossible.

"I think it was the cursed object's fault, she was keeping it with her at that time, so it must have influenced her thoughts. She definitely wasn't appreciated enough for the amount of work that she was doing and it must have made her choose the easiest way out, which was Ron's offer."

"What happened then?"

"After they left, I started thinking and I had no other choice but to realise just how bloody alone I really was. I was furious and I didn't want to stay there; hence I packed the tent and my things and I too left in a matter of hours making sure not to leave behind any trail whatsoever. The next day, Hermione and Ron obviously felt guilty about their actions and realised their mistake, they tried to find me for the next few weeks, but they couldn't. Hence, at Ron's frantic insistence they both went back to the 'Burrow' to meet with the other Order members, so to ask for their help in locating _me_. But the Order members didn't want Hermione or Ron going back out to the field, fearing the possibility of them leading the death eaters to me, due to their title 'undesirable' branded by the ministry."

The thirty-seven-year-old man took a deep breath and continued, "I was on the run for the next eight months, even the Order members couldn't find me. Meanwhile, without Hermione to help me with the research on the cursed objects, I had no choice but to carry on with what I knew and so I did my best at adapting and surviving, as you might say. I resorted to doing immoral and cruel things to get my information as it were. Finally, on the eighth month, I had a duel with a death eater who was also Voldemort's top enforcer Bellatrix Lestrange and when I managed to defeat her by the skin of my teeth, I forced her into revealing the location of one of the objects she knew off. According to her one of the objects were hidden in Hogwarts. I trusted the information that I had acquired as it made perfect sense, to Voldemort Hogwarts had a huge impact on his life and it was only logical that he hid one of those items there, soon I went to Hogwarts, to search for it. There was no clean entry or exit, but I decided to take the risk nonetheless and I went in, I was spotted on my way in and a fight broke out the moment I set foot into the castle. I fought many death eaters on the way and when it was clear that I can't search for anything in that atmosphere, I tried a tactical retreat, but I realised that I couldn't escape because the entire castle was sealed and Voldemort had already arrived to finish me off once and for all."

"I hid and I fought and again I hid and was spotted yet again. And when I was fighting a downside battle against the death eaters and Voldemort with no whatsoever chance at victory, fortunately, I was rescued in time by a brave friend of mine named Luna Lovegood. When we were safe and secure, she told me that the cursed objects that I was looking for were moved by Voldemort barely a month ago, and how she knew of this, that I have no idea. Voldemort somehow found out that I was hunting for his very source of immortality; naturally, he took the necessary steps to ensure that it didn't happen. Luna also informed me that Hermione was missing and that she snuck out of the Burrow and went looking for me. Then Luna took me to the Grey Lady, the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower, and the ghost led me out of Hogwarts through a secret layer of catacombs created by the founders of the school. The catacombs can only be opened by someone blood related to any of the four founders, but not the descendants, the Grey Lady's name was Helena Ravenclaw otherwise the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, who was one of the four founders of Hogwarts. As such, ghost or not, it opened in her presence and she safely led me out of Hogwarts, on my way out I was able to convince her and she also informed me where Voldemort hid the cursed object again after retrieving it from 'the room of hidden things' in Hogwarts a month ago."

The time-traveller paused for a moment and then continued again, "As soon as I escaped from Hogwarts, I went to the place Helena informed me about and I retrieved the object. Now I had two cursed objects and no way to destroy them. I needed to find a way, hence I went with what I knew and for the next month I searched, found and planned a trek down in through the rift canyon leading into the 'Chamber of Secrets' from the outside, an alternate entrance that Fawkes used to get us out back in my second year. After a rather very long and dangerous hike down, I was able to get in and recover several teeth from the dead Basilisk's skeleton. And with that, I destroyed both the cursed objects that I had at hand, stepping several steps closer to making Voldemort mortal again."

Seeing his older-self hesitating to continue, the seven-year-old asked, "After that, you went onto finding Hermione didn't you?" The time-travelling ghost looked at the young boy in surprise because he still had trouble digesting that his younger-self was even keener and smarter than he himself was when _he_ was at the beginning of Hogwarts, it reminded him just how much he had fallen.

"Yes…" He agreed to the child in front of him.

"Did you find her?"

"In a way, yes…"

"Where…?"

"At the very same cemetery, our parents are buried in." The time traveller replied sombrely.

"Was she…?"

"Yes…"

"Did the death eaters…?" The seven-year-old never finished, as he was interrupted by his older counterpart.

"No, to avoid being captured she took her own life."

Seeing the shocked and inquiring look of the boy sitting in front of him, he sighed and began to explain further, "As soon as Hermione and Ron couldn't find me, Ron apparently insisted to her rather very assertively that they both must head back to the Burrow. There, they were both reprimanded and were put under house arrest by Molly. In the coming months, Ron somehow convinced his mother and went on missions with the remaining Order members to keep track of Voldemort's movements, but Hermione was confined to the house doing chores for Molly. Eventually, Hermione and Ron had several huge arguments because Ron had no whatsoever idea of joining back with me on the quest, but Hermione, on the other hand, yearned for another chance at correcting her mistake. Hence, during their final argument, she gave over her relationship with him permanently and snuck out of the Burrow, in search of me. She knew better than to follow my trails, which is, in other words, impossible and also because the chances of running into death eaters and snatchers were rather high. Therefore she waited for me in 'Godric's Hollow', she knew that it was a place with sentimental value for me and that me visiting the place was a good possibility, but so was the chance of a trap. She hid there and waited for months despite the growing risk of encountering death eaters, but however, I never went there because I strongly suspected that the place would most likely be a snare. A month before I went to Hogwarts in search of the cursed item, a month before I even found out that she was missing, she was ambushed by several death eaters and Voldemort himself came there to witness her fight and that's how Voldemort learned about what I was hunting after. A muggleborn witch being captured by death eaters is the worst possible fate any woman can suffer, so before they could completely immobilise her and take her away, she managed to wiggle herself out of their grasp and killed herself."

"Meaning…" His seven-year-old counterpart pushed for an answer.

"Meaning that you'll understand when you're older." He replied quickly and the seven-year-old wisely accepted the answer and nodded in understanding.

"What happened then?" The curious boy asked him.

"The world became a much darker place, as things kept getting worse and worse...and worse." He spoke tiredly as if reliving a terrible memory.

"Didn't you and the Order do something?"

"Within the next year, all of the Order members were eliminated." He briefed sadly.

"Even the Weasleys…?"

"They too, it was ultimately Ron's fault that they all died." He replied nonchalantly.

The younger counterpart couldn't piece together the logic of the story, as it didn't make any sense for it to be Ron's fault. "Why was it Ron's fault?" The young Harry asked in a confused manner.

"You see after Hermione's death, one of the pureblood sympathisers who lived in Godric's Hollow buried her in the cemetery using one of his family's spaces. And when I found her there, I investigated into what had happened and through that man I learned of many things, then when I was sure, I informed the Order of what had happened to Hermione. This led Ron to go into a mental depression. After the news of Hermione's death spread, we finally started coordinating our efforts to improve our progress, we came to an agreement, the Order members wouldn't engage themselves in combat, but they would collect valuable information for me, while I would do the field work. This turned out to be a boon for me because I succeeded in destroying another one of Voldemort's cursed objects of Immortality within the next few months. With that, five out of seven objects were destroyed, Voldemort realised that he needed to change his tactics if he were to survive. Hence, instead of concentrating his sole attention on finding me, he approached Ron and threatened to kill his family. Ron, being the most idiotic and foolish mug he was, made an agreement with that monster, a pact to give up the other Order members to ensure the safety of his own family members."

"He gave them up?" The younger Potter asked in pure shock, it was even obvious to him that it was a very bad idea.

"Yes…, he did." He replied in a tone consisting of disgust, disappointment and latent anger, but he didn't stop there and kept continuing, "Voldemort was too smart to leave any loose ends, so once the Order members were eliminated; he obviously murdered Ron's family members too. And then Voldemort purposefully left Ron alive to lure me into another one of his traps, to capture me, as it were. Soon, ignoring the risk of a trap, I confronted Ron and _he_ blamed _me_ for the deaths of Hermione, the Order and his family. He seemed to think that if I hadn't kept going on with my quest and returned home, Hermione wouldn't have gone looking for me and that she would've been alive and that he wouldn't have made such a deal with Voldemort. And then out of his foolishness, blind rage, and his delusions, he tried to kill me, hoping to spare the world from any more pain."

The child asked intently, "What did you do in return?"

"I took his head." The seven-year-old Potter gulped at his older counterpart's crude statement.

"Why didn't you spare him?"

"Because of him, I lost my only connection to a family, Harry. I lost my surrogate uncle Remus, his wife and a close friend of mine Tonks and their son Teddy, who was my godson and above all that if it wasn't for him Hermione wouldn't have left me and she would've solved all mysteries and we would've won against Voldemort a long time ago. You won't understand this now, but one day you'll be able to comprehend just how much they really mean to you and I genuinely hope that you won't have to feel what it's like to lose them."

He paused for a moment to watch for his younger self's reaction and then he continued, "With that, the 'Order of the Phoenix' was no more and the only resistance that remained in Britain was forever lost. Since I was the only threat left in Britain; Voldemort concluded that it was time to expand his empire. He violated the 'Statute of Secrecy' and he proclaimed himself and the existence of the magical world to the mundane world. He then took over the UK quite easily and then he used the arsenal of muggle weaponry of our country to keep the other countries from retaliating and successfully stalled for precious time. And that 'precious time' proved to be useful because all over the world, many countries had to come up with ways to explain the existence of magical people and their community to the citizens of the normal world. Soon after that, chaos erupted and that ultimately led to various civil wars in respective countries. The countries and the governments that survived their war, lived, and the others that didn't survive were easily conquered by Voldemort. By the year 2014, the only countries that were coordinating with the ICW were Russia, China, Japan, South and North America, Australia and New Zealand, whereas everything else was under Voldemort's control."

"What were you doing by then?" The smart seven-year-old Potter asked his counterpart.

"Whereas by then for me, I was the only man in all of Europe to fight against Voldemort and never to be captured, not even once, I was the symbol of hope."

"What about the cursed objects?"

"About that, I hope I didn't have to tell you, but I don't see a choice. You see I was never able to destroy the last cursed object and there is a reason for it. The last two cursed objects weren't objects per se, they were living beings."

"What…? How can this 'objects of immortality' be living beings?" The younger Potter again asked being unable to see the logic behind it.

"To explain that I would have to tell you what the objects are and what the process itself does and believe you me I have no intention of explaining these things to you."

"Why not…?"

"Because the process we are talking about is one of the darkest forms of magic ever to exist, and I don't want you researching on it when you go to Hogwarts."

"Hey, don't judge me." The seven-year-old boy yelled back angrily.

"Let me ask you a question, why do you think I came here to 1987 and not somewhere along the way? If I was trying to simply change the course of history, I could've very well done it anywhere along the way, couldn't I?" He asked his younger counterpart. The seven-year-old thought for a while but he couldn't come up with an answer.

"It's because I'm hoping that you'll become a smart, calm, steady-minded person who can make completely rational decisions even when under excessive pressure. I couldn't do this during my schooling years; only after years of living in a war-torn world did I become capable enough of this. And I don't think any of my counterparts in my respective schooling years can develop such steady mindedness without the corresponding side effects that come with their age, so I came _here_ to correct myself at the very root of all problems." He explained to his younger counterpart, who was listening very carefully.

"What root of all problems?"

He sighed and began hesitantly, "The event that changed my life. Next year, you'll score top marks in a test, while ousting Dudley who will score the least in the whole class. For this, uncle Vernon will whip your back with his belt until his arm weakens due to pain and ache. After that, to avoid such events, such pain in the future you'll simply give up on learning and on sports and by the time you get your Hogwarts letter, you'll comply with their every request with minimal resistance. You turn out to be an immature, weak-minded boy who enters Hogwarts with an excessive fame that only further hinders you from developing yourself. And when you do go to Hogwarts, you'll be manipulated by a fucking headmaster who thinks he knows what's best for everyone and a stupid best mate who holds you back at every turn and keeps you isolated from making other potential friends who could've helped, who would've helped if only you have gotten to know them better." The thirty-seven-year-old ghost yelled back losing his temper for the first time in the entire time.

"I gave up when I was your age and the result of it is a one-eyed ghost sitting in front of you, now. Do you want to live your entire school life while being in constant peril and then fighting a war that you never really understood or to live a normal life with a loving family? It's up to you, Harry. And today, here, if my intervention changes you then what may happen next is for the _better_ or the _worse_. And if you turn out to become how I want you to be, there is a particularly high chance that you may grow into an ambitious, cold-hearted person like Voldemort at his starting years at Hogwarts. And if by chance you turn out to be anything like a young Tom Marvolo Riddle then I don't want you knowing much about Immortality, do you understand?" He asked the child sitting in front of him and the said child nodded vigorously being afraid of his older self.

He sighed at the child and spoke softly, "I didn't mean to scare you. This period of time, now, this is where I can actually make a change. This is where all the problems of my future began, me giving up on life just to spare the pain of my uncle's whipping. If only I had persevered through for a few more years, how my life could've been changed, it was something I wished for every day in the later years of my life."

"Now, I'm going to give you some pieces of information and I need you to promise that you'll not go looking for ways to undo this, okay?" He asked his younger counterpart in a brotherly manner.

"I promise…"

"Good…" He didn't really believe that his younger self _wouldn't_ go looking for such intimate information about Horcruxes, but now he was sure that at least his younger-self would exercise caution while doing so and that was all he could really expect of ' _himself'_.

"Almost six years ago when Voldemort tried to kill you with a killing curse, it backfired onto himself and his body was destroyed. I told you that our mother's love saved us from instant death, but something else happened that night. As Voldemort's body was destroyed by the backfired curse, we became one of his objects of Immortality. It's not entirely clear what happened or how it happened, however, I know for a fact that Voldemort himself didn't mean for it to happen, it was entirely accidental."

The seven-year-old looked at him wide-eyed and muttered, "Oh…"

"I know you have many questions, so ask away." He prompted the boy to clear the doubts.

"Does this mean that I have to die for Voldemort to become mortal again?"

"Technically, yes, but there are ways to bypass this…"

"There are…?"

"You see one of the reasons for why I confidently came back in time was because that I was sure that I was no longer one of Voldemort's cursed objects for maintaining immortality. There is also a reason for why I survived that many encounters with Voldemort over the years, it was because I couldn't kill him as he was immortal and very strong, but also because of the fact that _he_ didn't _want_ to kill _me_ because he knew that I was one of his sources of immortality. He knew this because Hermione suspected that I was one of the cursed objects due to the psychic link I and Voldemort shared and since Voldemort read her mind, he too began to suspect and eventually he also concluded in favour of Hermione's logic after he scoped through all of Ron's memories via Legilimency and validated all his doubts. I couldn't just kill myself to try and make Voldemort mortal again because his snake/familiar Nagini was the last cursed object and I couldn't kill it, and if I died and Voldemort lived, then there would be no one else to stop him."

"And I know there is a way to bypass this, because once I was stabbed in my right lung and technically, I was dead for three minutes, until a…, an acquaintance of mine revived me back. Once I was revived, the curse that maintained Voldemort's immortality was undone, of course, Voldemort didn't know any of this and frankly, I exploited his unawareness of the fact to my advantage countless times."

"Does that mean Voldemort was almost mortal when you came back?"

"Yes, I tried to kill his familiar snake on various occasions over a seven-year period, but I couldn't succeed."

"If you had kept trying would you have managed to kill it?"

"Hard to say, maybe…I could've, maybe I couldn't."

"If so, then why did you risk everything by coming back in time?"

"Good god, I'm tired of explaining. Don't you understand, yet? I came back in time just because I could…, and I thought a different start in our life would help the future of the world." He groaned and replied back to his younger counterpart.

"Why?"

"In 2013 the ICW started conducting ventures with squads that contained both hit-wizards and muggle military men for support and they were systematically recapturing the countries that had fallen into the hands of Voldemort, this was possible because both magical and non-magical people had a common enemy and the struggle against this enemy, united them. And Voldemort was obviously alarmed by this and so in January 2014, Voldemort captured many scholars who specialised in various fields of magical arts and he had them build a magical time-travel device. In February 2017, just over three years later, the device itself was complete; once it was done Voldemort destroyed all the research and eliminated the researchers to ensure that they won't create another such device for anyone else, to tie up all loose ends as it were."

"Let me…let me guess. You created a time-travel device of your own to counter against Voldemort's time travel plan?" The seven-year-old asked excitedly.

"NO…, Harry, it took three years for more than three hundred magical scholars to create that device, do you really think I could've done that by my own?" He deadpanned back logically.

The seven-year-old boy thought for a moment and realised that his theory was unlikely, "Probably not…"

"Precisely, instead of going through all the trouble of creating that device, I went undercover as a death eater and patiently yet silently waited a few years until the device itself was complete and when it did, I stole it from Voldemort and by some miracle, I was able to escape out of there alive. It was a brilliant plan because Voldemort himself wouldn't be able to recreate the time travel device again because the research and the researchers were eliminated, and the data itself was too big and complex for even Voldemort's Legilimency skills."

"If the time travel device was made for Voldemort, then why would he want a device that would kill him if he used it?"

"Good question. Voldemort thought of himself as immortal despite my efforts at making him mortal again. And if it worked, then he wouldn't have to worry about me and my attempts to kill him anymore. And even if it didn't, he would still be alive because of the snake." And the answer vaguely made sense to the child.

"And you came back here to help me." The seven-year-old claimed it with some level of certainty.

"I came back to help us."

"Us…?"

"Yes, us, you and me both… You, to put you on a healthy path that I'm hoping will save the world. And me, to clear my conscience and do one good thing that's useful to people, before I _move on_ from this earth." He provided a slightly cryptic answer to his younger counterpart, hoping that one day he will understand the meaning of his reply.

"It's almost around four; you should try to get some sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time. And don't be surprised if you can't sleep well, the effects of my Legilimency still remains." He said to his younger self and he switched off the light.

* * *

 ** _Two Days Later (Evening)-_**

During the course of the last two days, the thirty-seven-year-old wraith had to explain everything to the young child once again, who had thought of everything as a dream when he had woken up the following morning. The time-traveller had also made sure to play with Vernon's, Petunia's and Dudley's minds. He effectively used his Legilimency skills to stretch their thoughts of distaste regarding him a little and then placed some lasting beliefs in their minds. And on top of that as a safety measure he placed some 'compulsion spells' in the house, he did this so to make his supposedly _'civilised relatives'_ into ignoring his younger-self in the coming years, so to facilitate his younger-self's magical development before entering Hogwarts. Being a wraith wandless magic came easily to him, even though he had extraordinary control over his own magic sometimes he needed his wand to cast complex spellwork, but now it was unnecessary.

He also used his Legilimency skills coupled with his immensely strong intent to manipulate his younger self's own magic to literally shatter Voldemort's consciousness that was inside the soul piece. And then, once he was sure that Voldemort can't influence his younger-self with the Horcrux, he gave some _'minor'_ access to Voldemort's knowledge and information bank, more like inducing artificial instinct into the young mind. He then taught his younger self's mind to reason with every logic and permutation before coming to a conclusion, to use such methods to look at life. It was a gamble on his part, but he couldn't see another way to ensure that his younger-self would grow stronger both magically and mentally before entering Hogwarts despite whatever the impacts his _'timely intervention'_ may accomplish.

Despite what others may say, there were some things no one can deny about Voldemort. Tom Marvolo Riddle was a lethal combination of brilliance, ambition and intellect. And since Voldemort had an extraordinary level of control over his magic even at a young age, he found it requisite that his other-self too will need to have such a level of control to match the tyrant in terms of raw power. It was one of the many things he lacked when he began his journey to fulfil his destiny at the beginning of Hogwarts and as such in the years to come he ended up fighting an impossible war for two decades seeing no eventual destination on the horizon.

At the moment, he was sitting with his younger-self on a bench in the park watching the sunset. There was an awkward silence between them, his magic was depleting and he had no choice but to leave this world forever and his counterpart felt like he was abandoning him with only leaving a burden to bear.

He looked at the sad child sitting beside him and he began with a smile, "I've left you a diary with insights and opinions on individuals and on events that you may meet or experience over the years. And dense information about the basics of magic and some simple yet effective exercises for you to practice and trust me practising it without a wand will do you wonders. The diary is enchanted in a way that new passages, more information and new memories will appear on it with time and you'll be able to view the memories as if you were there. A part of my consciousness is embedded in this diary, so if you want any advice then you can ask by writing diary entries. I hope you find it useful."

There was no immediate reply from the seven-year-old, but a few minutes later the child slowly asked, "Why didn't you just give me all your memories and knowledge?"

"First of all, it wasn't because I didn't want to, but rather it was because it's impossible."

"Why?"

"Harry, think of your mind as a magical pot that can hold _seven_ units of water, which resembles your age. This pot is magical because it's charmed in a way that it'll never lose any of what's poured into it and also because it grows in size with enough time. Now, my mind is a subsequently bigger magical pot that can hold up to thirty-seven units of water. What would happen if I were to pour all the thirty-seven units of water into your pot, which can only hold only seven units and remember this magical pot would do everything in its power to not waste the water?"

"The pot would rupture…?"

"Precisely…, your mind won't be able to hold the stress of a memory transfusion and believe me I fancied about it a lot. However facts are facts, if I wanted to give you all of my memories and everything, I'd have to do it piece by piece and it would very well take years and unfortunately for us, we don't have years."

There was a long comfortable silence, but the young child wasn't finished yet, he asked again, "If there was another way to save the world, would you have still chosen to travel back in time?"

"Another way, huh…? It would depend on what way it is."

"What if it is a much better way? Would you have given it over for a fresh start?"

"No, I wouldn't have."

"Why not…?"

"You do understand that the only thing that stood between me and my victory was a pet snake named Nagini, which I couldn't locate even after years of searching. If I had a better way to save the world, then I definitely wouldn't have risked everything on a gamble." He replied back seriously.

"A gamble…? What gamble?" The child looked at him giving a confused and inquiring look.

He sighed softly and corrected, "An act of faith perhaps, but I'd still prefer calling it a 'gamble'."

"Why do you call this plan a 'gamble', don't you trust me?" The child asked confused by the man's intent.

"No, it's nothing like that… I do trust you, if I'm not going to trust _myself_ , then whom am I going to trust? It's the world that I don't believe in. I call this plan a gamble because by coming back in time to change the course of history, I've given you resources and I've paved way for future opportunities for you to acquire and build upon. Everything that I didn't have during my childhood, which is intelligence, wisdom and talent. You see people with excessive of all these in them, they usually find an ambition and eventually to fulfil their goals they would at one point find themselves falling to a darker path. Now that I've given you all these qualities, there is a particularly high possibility of you inclining towards evil in the future. And that's why I prefer calling this a 'gamble'."

Suddenly, he stopped smiling at the child sitting beside him and he spoke urgently, "I'm glad you brought this up, my magic is almost depleted and I'll pass on any moment now. Could you do me a favour, consider it a man's last request?"

"A-a-anything…" The young Harry stuttered back hesitantly.

"I want you to promise me that you'll never lose your compassion."

"What difference does it make?"

"It makes all the difference in the world, Harry. A single moment of compassion to others could very well change everything that would mean anything to you."

"I know that I have no right asking you this, having already placed an incredible burden on your shoulders, but I'm asking nonetheless because you've felt more pain than most your age and that makes you one of the only people who can understand the pain of others. Will you promise me this, Harry?" He desperately asked this to his younger counterpart.

"I promise…"

"Thank you." He replied with a heartfelt tone of gratitude.

Harry looked at the sky above and spoke serenely, "I've gambled with death all these years, being the 'master of death'. I thought that I was ready and now at death's door, I find myself 'scared', the irony of it." He barked out loud with a gruff laughter. The young Harry Potter who was sitting beside his older-self too looked up at the sky wondering in confusion and then he turned to his side, only to find that his older-self had disappeared from reality and passed on to the afterlife.

He sombrely looked up at the sky again hoping that his older-self may find peace wherever he is. His very first friend was gone and he had no idea how to feel about all this and all that's ahead of him in the future.

"Goodbye, brother…" He whispered to his first friend and a brother figure. And for some reason that he couldn't explain, he felt like everything was going to be just fine.

* * *

 _ **People this is officially my fourth attempt at fanfiction and third attempt at Harry Potter fanfiction. This is another time-travel story and I'll be continuing this in tandem to my 'Time-Warp' and please be a little more patient. I've been trying to re-inspire myself and when I do, and then you'll have all the chapters that you want.**_

 _ **This story is an alternate universe, starting from the point, 'what if Hermione had left with Ron that day', and how the world would have turned out to be kind of story. Feel free to review and point out any mistakes that I've made and I'll do everything to correct it.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **News- 'And people, if you want to read the chapters at your earliest, then read the same story in Inkitt. My profile name is the same and same is the name of the story. It's user-friendly and rather comfortable to use, so I'll be continuing there, but I will also be updating '** _ **here**_ **'.'**

 **The link to my profile page is 'triple-w dot inkitt dot com(slash)joenaruhina57'. You'll find the story there…**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Snape bashing… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing…**

* * *

 _ **Privet Drive (1991, July 11**_ _ **th**_ _ **)-**_

Several stone slabs with runic wards embedded onto it were buried deep around the house. They were all placed there as a precaution by a certain time-traveller almost four years ago. The runes on the wards were glowing and shimmering every now and then, indicating that it was active. The wards were placed there to contain the strain while in the event of powerful magical surges; it would prevent the magic from causing any structural destruction to the house and any harm to anyone who may be within the range of the magical surges. The wards would allow the detection of the usage of magic, but the stronger power surges the more effectively would it be suppressed from the monitors, hence the Ministry's magical sensors would register the usage of magic as accidental. As the wards were doing its work, inside the house, in the cupboard, under the stairs, in the dark there a certain ten-year-old raven-haired boy was sitting cross-legged on his mattress. It was a little past four in the morning and his uncle, aunt and cousin were all fast asleep.

If one were to switch on the light, they would be shocked to see a number of objects that were levitating in mid-air while circling around the sitting boy who was acutely scrunching his face in order to concentrate better. It was an event of advanced telekinesis, a raw form of the magic's manipulation in the physical realm. He was testing his control over his own magic without losing his concentration over the number of circling objects. To make the exercise even more challenging, he was doing it in pitch black, hence without being able to see the objects that were around him, he will have to feel the centre of mass of the target objects and use his telekinesis on them sequentially and control their movements accordingly.

Four years ago, he started practising his wandless magic by trying to move small inanimate objects without physically touching it. In the beginning, it started as a simple exercise of trying to push or pull some small stones or pebbles, but _now_ , he can bloody well lift, levitate and move multiple objects within a range of fifteen metres in any direction around him, but only if the objects weigh between a few kilogrammes. When he began with this practice, his control over magic was minimal, but with training done over the course of the last four years, he was able to further develop it, to levels that even adult witches and wizards wouldn't try to practice without their wands. As the overall control over his magic grew, even more, advanced forms of magical manipulation were possible. Nowadays he could levitate an object, slice it, transfigure it and the list went on and on. Yet it had the downside of taking more time to accomplish it if he were to combine two of those exercises. For example, he could levitate an object within a few minutes of concentration and focus, but at the same time transfiguring the same object would take him a ' _minimum'_ of ten minutes.

However, if asked, he would unhesitatingly answer that the several hours of hard training that he had done every day for the last four years were worth every bit of his effort. What he or his time-travelling counterpart had failed to anticipate was the effect of his early years of training. When he began his training as a seven-year-old, he had begun stretching his physical and magical systems to levels that only a first year Hogwarts student would attempt to practice when using a wand. And now with his control training, he was stretching himself to levels equivalent to a third year Hogwarts student and as his training progressed, his physical system got used to the levels of strain employed on it. As such he was far above in terms of raw power when compared to anyone in his equivalent age group.

In the diary entries, his older-self stressed several times that the first step at gaining power wasn't to learn new skills, instead, the key to it was to enhance his existing abilities to extraordinary levels. He took this lesson to heart and questioned himself about his prowess. And in the end, he arrived at the conclusion that the only things he was good at were hiding, studying and identifying emotions, and so he started improving himself in those aspects.

He rather liked conversing to his older self's consciousness via the diary, but there was a downside, the diary could only hold the interaction to a short time because once the magic stored in the diary runs out, it would need quite a lot of time to recharge. Hence he can only converse with his older-self for maybe five times in an entire year. And during their conversations, his older-self would often suggest and stress the need to avoid contacting each other unless there is a necessity.

As he progressed with his wandless magic, the effectiveness of his ability to cast spells increased. In the beginning, it would exhaust him to even cast a simple illusion, but now, he can wandlessly cast 'notice-me-not' charm, noise and light suppressing spells and a few layers of optical illusions together after a couple of minutes of concentration with only a lazy wave of his hand. He often used these specific series of spells because they would hide him better in order to blend in with his surroundings. He learned of these spells and charms from the diary. And these spells helped him in enhancing his skills because at the beginning he knew how to hide, and two years ago he could very well disappear, but now, he can truly be invisible and none would notice him even when in broad daylight.

When he successfully developed his skills at hiding himself, a chain of events took place. He realised that being able to effectively disappear without a trace when amongst a crowd had several more uses than he first perceived them to be and this revelation proved to be a boon for him. It gave him both ideas and opportunities for him to practice his skills on his sleight of hand. Thus, money was no longer a problem for him. In the past, he would've had to literally beg his aunt for money and every single time she would throw a fit, but that was another time. Now, he would simply nick the needed money from the older boys in the neighbourhood, but only from the boys who don't deserve his compassion.

Once he developed the ability to effectively disappear, his money problem was solved. And as his money problem was solved, he no longer starved every day by only eating meagre portions of food while cooking for his relatives, he could very well buy what he want, when he want it and eat it, however, it would still require him to use some illusion when shopping. After he corrected his eating habits, making some healthy changes in his diet, he reached the average weight and height of his classmates and he was able to better fit into Dudley's oversized hand-me-downs. Most of the boys in the neighbourhood wouldn't suspect him because he was simply too subtle, and those who did notice would often meet with some harmless yet unfortunate accidents that would make them deter. He rather liked bullying the ' _bullies'_ , even if his targets had no idea that he was the one who was behind their misfortunes, it was still satisfying to watch them being overly _'confused'_ about what was happening to them. Hence now, he was no longer the short, thin and meek boy who would constantly be tormented by Dudley and his gang. Now, even Dudley wouldn't dare complain to his parents about _him_ fighting back to the bullying although, for the first time, Dudley may have had a solid reason to complain since Harry would never hold back in retaliation against him.

For some reason, self-defence always came easily to him and it often felt odd to him. He has never learned any form of advanced hand to hand combat before and yet whenever he fought back to Dudley and his gang, he would move so fluidly like it was second nature to him. Little did he know that it was the result of Voldemort's knowledge and awareness seeping into his mind, this was exactly what the time-traveller had intended to happen when he destroyed Voldemort's consciousness in the Horcrux and gave his younger self some minimal access to Voldemort's knowledge and information bank. Fortunately, this event also gave him some minor Occulumency barriers that were developing on its own, _subsequent_ to his training on keeping his concentration resolute while multitasking. And above that as per the instructions left in the diary, he did some basic Occulumency training like breathing and emotion control exercises on a regular basis. It was for these reasons, why studies always came effortlessly to him even when he didn't bother studying, and he for one had no idea _'why'_ all of this was possible.

With all of his _timely_ improvements, he no longer seemed to be an abnormal child to anyone. As such, over the course of the last four years, his classmates slowly reduced and eventually stopped their ill-treatment of him which was something they only took after Dudley's example and finally at long last they warmed up to him.

Nowadays he was able to go playing cricket or chess with his classmates whenever he wanted to, he was even invited by one of his classmates to visit her house, which of course he ignored and placed the blame on his relatives. Sports acted as a stress relief for his engaged mind, it refreshed his mind and body. With his mind and body no longer being tensed and agitated, he started paying attention in his classes and soon he was able to concentrate not only on his studies but also on his magical exercises. Dudley often at times being jealous of him made it a point to deny him of his precious study and homework time by regularly disturbing him with his running on the stairs. Nonetheless, he still remained one of the best students in class. Nowadays whatever punishment his aunt or uncle would concoct regarding his overachieving nature compared to their whale of a son, he would simply endure through it by convincing himself that 'whatever that doesn't kill him only made him stronger' and in the end, he would still be at the top of his class, while Dudley remained at the bottom.

Having lived most of his life with his relatives, he could instantly pick up the presence of nasty emotions like hatred, rage and misery in conversations. He did this via judging the subtle change in vocabulary and the modulation used in their tenor. However positive emotions were almost impossible for him to differentiate, if seen or heard, he would know how to recognise it as a positive emotion, but at the same time he wouldn't be able to distinguish them from each other. As such, he wouldn't know the difference between the feelings of being happy and being content. This affected him socially because whenever mingling with his classmates at school he would essentially be lost within their discussion. For this reason, he constantly put himself in socially awkward positions and developed skills that he would need to essentially fit in. Communication, eye contact and understanding non-verbal cues were all overly difficult for him at the beginning. And when he realised that just being able to disappear wasn't enough, he persevered through it with his pure will and now he can have an open conversation with a random stranger and at the end of their conversation, he would essentially be an acquaintance to the stranger.

Four years ago his older-self, made him promise that he should be compassionate to others, however, his compassion came with a price. He trusted his older-self, the man was like a bigger brother to him, who looked out for his well-being and meant him no harm. But was he to trust the people that he was to be compassionate to, no, not in any bloody way. Hence the way to solve this problem came with him being very judgemental of others and so his approach onto others may seem overly rude however it wasn't without good reason. His older self's opinions on various people's behaviours gave him the base perspective for him to build his own personal opinions. In the end, his opinions, which are augmented after very careful observations from his part, are the only ones that matter to him.

He loved a challenge, solving puzzles excited him and having the experience of being bored for most days in his life, he cherished adventures. The more challenging his training is, the more involved he becomes with it. He liked reading about and viewing the exploits of his future-self from the diary, his older self would have rambled on about some interesting events in the diary, most likely intending to teach him moral values, but in the end, he learned more than just a moral, he acquired a finer perspective. He understood the fact that simply having a number of abilities won't help him; he realised that with these abilities he would need to have an unshakable will and a captivated focus.

On the other hand, he was also aware of the effects of time-travel. Last month on Dudley's birthday, they were all supposed to go to the Zoo and he was expected to talk to a snake there using Parseltongue. According to the diary, Mrs Figg was thought to have broken her leg and that leading him to go with his relatives to the Zoo. But however, Mrs Figg was perfectly fine and so he stayed with her that whole day watching Star Wars movies on her new VCR. That made him wonder if things may change if he went to Hogwarts, but since he didn't know much about the changes than what contradicted with the events left in the diary, he with great difficulty decided not to _'judge'_ or overreact in any way.

* * *

It was four in the morning, he woke up a little while ago and he couldn't sleep because according to the diary today was the day, he'd get his first Hogwarts letter. He didn't know for sure if it would arrive today, but nonetheless, he was so excited that he couldn't go back to sleep again, hence he kept practising his control over magic as he waited for the sunrise.

Hours passed and his relatives woke up and soon aunt Petunia came downstairs opened his _bedroom_ door. She then ordered him to cook breakfast as soon as possible because apparently his uncle, aunt and Dudley were going to a marriage in a few hours and that they had no time to waste with him _lazing_ around, as it were.

As he finished his cooking, Vernon and Dudley finished their breakfast and then he and his aunt began with theirs. Soon everyone finished with their breakfast and he was distributing snacks to his uncle and Dudley in the living room. Suddenly the doorbell rang and Petunia yelled out to him from the kitchen, "Get the mail, boy."

"Yes, aunt Petunia." He spoke uninterestedly.

He walked to the front door and retrieved the letters from their doorstep. He instantly began searching and was relieved to find the Hogwarts letter among the three other letters. And then he closed his eyes for a minute and hung his hand over the letters in a wave-like motion and suddenly the Hogwarts letter became invisible, he then proceeded towards the living room and handed the remaining letters to Vernon. And as Vernon began looking through the letters, he went to his cupboard and hid his letter beneath his mattress and went to the kitchen in order to clean up the dishes.

He hurried through the dishes and washed them as quickly as he can, being unable to contain his excitement and wanting to read the letter so badly. By the end of the hour, Petunia, Vernon and Dudley all were on their way to Vernon's co-worker's wedding. Just as soon as they left the house, he closed his eyes and concentrated deeply for a few minutes and when he was sure that he had the necessary focus, he waved his hand over the dirty dishes in the sink and within a second it was spotless.

He then immediately rushed to his 'makeshift cupboard bedroom' and he excitedly opened the letter that was addressed to him by name, Mr H. Potter, the Cupboard under the Stairs, No 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey and he read the first page out loud.

* * *

 **HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

 **Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock,_

 _Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)_

Dear Mr H. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

 **Minerva McGonagall**

 **Deputy Headmistress**

* * *

He flipped over the first page of the letter and revealed the attached page, he then mumbled to himself in a low tone as he read the contents of it.

* * *

 **HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

UNIFORM

First-year students will require:

1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)

2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

4\. One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags.

COURSE BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

 _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_

 _By Miranda Goshawk_

 _A History of Magic_

 _By Bathilda Bagshot_

 _Magical Theory_

 _By Adalbert Waffling_

 _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_

 _By Emeric Switch_

 _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_

 _By Phyllida Spore_

 _Magical Drafts and Potions_

 _By Arsenius Jigger_

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_

 _By Newt Scamander_

 _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_

 _By Quentin Trimble_

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set brass scales

Students may also bring if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad.

 **PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS**

 **ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK**

Yours sincerely,

 **Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus**

 **Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions**

* * *

Once he finished the letter, he knew that back in Hogwarts they would've known that he had read it and that meant that Dumbledore would most likely send the half-giant named Hagrid in a few more days in order to introduce him to the magical world. He breathed out in relief and relaxed into his bed and kept thinking of his next obstacle.

* * *

 _ **Four days later-**_

It was a fine Monday morning, a little past ten o'clock. Petunia was in the living room enjoying a magazine article, Vernon was at work and Dudley was with his friends most probably bullying children in the neighbourhood and he was carefully mopping the floor.

Everything was fine with the world until suddenly the doorbell rang and his aunt turned to look at him and ordered sternly, "Look who it is and be respectful."

"Yes, aunt Petunia." He replied in a bored manner and went to the door.

He assumed it as another salesman, for the last two days every time the doorbell rang he would go to the door hoping that it was the Hogwarts's representative. But after enough disappointments, he stopped hoping and started waiting for his birthday instead; as he knew that it was only on his birthday did Hagrid come to pick him up.

As he opened the door, he saw a tall, rather severe-looking woman peering straight into his eyes. She was wearing an emerald green robe with a tartan pattern embedded on it. She also wore a pointed hat cocked to one side and had a very prim expression on her face. And beneath the hat she had her long hair combed back into a tight bun. She was none other than the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall.

Meanwhile, Minerva McGonagall who was known for her strict composure, staggered back for a fleeting moment, as she could have sworn that she was looking at James Potter when he first came to Hogwarts all those years ago. The boy standing in front of her was the splitting image of his father with the exception of a beautiful set of emerald green eyes, something she believed to be his mother's.

"Hello, Mister Potter…" She spoke to him kindly in a knowing tone, while sporting a rare smile on her face.

He stared at her for a long moment and took in her appearance. He was positive that this woman was undoubtedly from the magical world, looking at her old-fashioned attire and besides he could sense the immensely strong magic bubbling around her. Practising wandless magic gave him the ability to sense magic around him, which was how he gauged the amount of magic he has used from the volume he had within him. However, he had instructions to act defensively, hence he replied back, "Pardon me ma'am, but I don't believe we were acquainted." Instead of being offended by the rather crude statement, she simply nodded with the smile still on her face. Before she could introduce herself to the young boy, she was interrupted by a shrill shriek that came from inside the house.

Meanwhile, Petunia who had been listening to the brief conversation from the living room immediately rushed to the door to see who it was. And just as soon as she saw, she recognised the woman as the professor from _'that wretched school'_. She then rushed past her nephew to the door and spoke to the deputy headmistress with evident distaste in her tone, "What do _you_ want?"

"I'm here to introduce Mister Potter to the magical world, of course…" Minerva spoke in a stern yet obvious manner assuming that they have read the letter and accepted Harry's difference as a wizard.

"Go away; we don't want you darkening our doorstep again. Harry is a normal boy; he will be going to Stonewall high and not to your freakish school." Petunia spoke loudly, spat at the deputy headmistress and rudely slammed the door shut.

If Minerva felt insulted she didn't express it in the least, instead she rang the doorbell again continuously for a few minutes and waited until Petunia partially opened the door again, and this time she spoke sternly, "Mrs Dursley, may I come in?" Petunia seemed both unsure and incredulous at the demanding question. Minerva, who usually wouldn't choose to intrude on someone's privacy, made an exception here, and she took a step into the house and stood her ground meaning that she wasn't going to yield.

"You cannot just barge into my house as you wish…!" Petunia shouted in her usual shrill voice.

"Apparently, I can…" Minerva replied having nothing but impassiveness in her tone.

This time Petunia took a step back and moved away from the door and at that instant, Minerva swiftly moved into the house and closed the door behind her. Minerva who respected others' privacy would never intrude anywhere like this, but then again she knew how terrible these muggles actually are and above all, for her, Harry Potter's welfare was more important than these muggles' privacy.

"This is trespassing." Petunia again yelled in her shrill voice, which was becoming rather irritating for the remaining occupants of the house.

Minerva who had enough of the yelling decided to silence the woman, "When you read the letter, it meant that you understood the terms of 'the Statute of Secrecy', it's not something that's taken lightly. It also stands as a proof that Mister Potter is anything but normal." Minerva sternly asserted to the despicable woman standing in front of her.

"You're not making any sense, we haven't read any letter." Petunia replied back perplexedly.

As this was happening, Harry who was leaning on the glass door of the living room kept hoping that his aunt would get hexed by this woman. He had instructions to make it look like he had no idea about magic rather than the doubts about the unusual things that have happened in his early life. As he was listening to the conversation, he was in deep thought. He kept wondering a few confusing things, the Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived on the exact same date as mentioned in the diary, but however, this woman was the one who came to introduce him to the magical world and not the man named Hagrid. He didn't know why one of the events in the diary would come true while the other proved false. He was shaken out of his musing when he heard his aunt's defence and so he decided to intervene in at that moment and put his _point_ in the discussion.

"Is this letter by any chance a parchment mentioning a place called Hogwarts?" He pointed the question at McGonagall pretending to be confused and curious.

"Were you the one who read the letter?" McGonagall asked the boy to clarify her doubts.

"Yes…"

"Frankly, I thought of the letter to be a prank note."

"It's not a prank Mister Potter, Hogwarts does exist and so does magic."

Hearing the brief conversation and its intended path, his aunt became so furious that she yelled at him in rage, "GO TO YOUR ROOM THIS INSTANT…" It wasn't until after her yelling did she realise her mistake. By ordering her nephew she most likely revealed the fact that her nephew's room was an improvised cupboard, to the already disillusioned deputy headmistress.

"Fine…" Again he replied back uninterestedly with a loose shrug of his shoulder and then he walked forwards to the cupboard near McGonagall and he opened the door and went in and closed the door. Minerva who saw Harry walking inside the cupboard looked dumbstruck, as she realised that the young Potter's room was a makeshift cupboard. Her expressions turned from being shocked to being furious and it further progressed to being almost murderous.

Minerva McGonagall when furious was an imposing woman who even Albus freaking Dumbledore would think twice before daring to trifle with. And being known for her strict controlled behaviour, people have rarely seen her lose control of her emotions. And unfortunately for Petunia Evans Dursley, she was just too unlucky as she was about to witness and endure Minerva's ire.

Minerva slowly procured her wand from inside her robe and held it at Petunia's face and asked in a cold threatening tone, "Is that Mister Potter's room?" Petunia who was already scared stiff at the very sight of the wand was now terrified beyond belief at the woman's threatening tone; however her fear prevented her from replying to the woman's question.

"IS THAT MISTER POTTER'S ROOM?" She asked again rather loudly and this time his aunt mutely nodded a 'yes' to the question.

"How long has he lived there…?"

Petunia hesitated for a brief a moment, but was effortlessly persuaded by the wand that reached even closer to her face and almost touched her skin, she replied hurriedly, "Almost ten years." Hearing this, Minerva fury rose to levels that progressed beyond murderous, it was only due to her years of experience in life did she manage to maintain her emotional composure from faltering any further.

She pointed her wand at the cupboard and a second later the door swung open, as it opened she saw the young child silently sitting on his mattress, "Mister Potter, please move to the dining room and bring the acceptance letter with you."

Minerva then led Petunia to the dining room and made her sit down on the settee. Then she asked him, "Mister Potter, I'll ask you the basic question. What do you know about your past and the existence of the magical world?"

"Before answering that, could you tell me who you are, first?"

Minerva raised a single eyebrow at him and then she looked thoughtful for a moment and then began as it was an acceptable query, "My apologies… I'm Professor Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Oh…" He correlated the name with the information at hand. This woman fitted the description of the strict disciplinarian deputy headmistress and transfiguration expert and the woman's introduction confirmed his hunch.

"Now, please…" Minerva looked at him closely awhile, already expecting an answer which she surely knew that it wouldn't impress her.

"Okay…, from what you've told me and from the letter I read, it's possible that 'this magical world' may indeed exist and I choose to believe in it because many unexplainable things that often happen around me when I'm sad or distressed, it vaguely makes sense with this theory. And I'm not quite sure what you meant when you asked about my past."

Seeing that her ward was unaware, she explained, "Your past, as in who your parents are, what happened to them and why it happened to them. And apart from that, the question about 'who you are', your heritage and your social standing..."

"I know that my parents' names are James and Lily and that they died in a car crash, but that's nearly all I know."

"Oh, for heaven's sake…" Minerva tiredly muttered to herself and looked at him sombrely and then she glanced at Petunia with pure disgust.

"You haven't disclosed anything to him, have you?" She demanded to the slightly trembling woman in front of her.

To that Petunia mustered all of her remaining courage and spoke, "My husband and I are the boy's guardians, not you. We decide what the boy should know and what he shouldn't. We swore when we took him, that we would stamp out all that freakishness he had in him. Harry won't be going to your freakish school to learn magic tricks and that's final."

"I'm afraid, you're not in any position to make decisions regarding, Mister Potter anymore. Do you understand? Whether he is going to Hogwarts or not, it was never your decision to make, to begin with, that choice solely belongs to him and him only." Minerva replied back as sternly as she could and that literally made Petunia flinch back and nod in fear.

"You knew…?" He interrupted while pointing his eyes towards his aunt in a ghostly tone.

"Of course, I knew. You being your mother's freakish son, I knew you would be just as abnormal as her. My parents were so happy the day she got her letter, Lily this and Lily that, their perfect daughter… Only I saw for what she was, a freak." Petunia spoke with such contempt that even disgusted Minerva, who with her years of experience knew how to handle all sorts of people.

Seeing that Harry was about to yell at his aunt, Minerva decided to intervene and interrupted, "Enough…" That successfully shut up Petunia's ranting and stopped Harry from erupting.

"That being said since we're all here, let's ask Mister Potter and find out whether he wants to go or not, shall we?" Minerva prompted the woman in front of her. Petunia looked frightened as she was sure that the cursed boy would agree to go with this woman to that school.

"Mister Potter, would you like to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Minerva asked the raven-haired boy in front of her.

He shouted out his reply happily, "YES…" That was all the assurance Minerva needed to carry on, she turned to look at the boy's aunt with a barely concealed superior smile. Meanwhile Petunia looked very frustrated and rather angry at him, but he didn't care what she thought about him in the least.

"Mister Potter, we have a very long conversation ahead of us, but unfortunately, I'm on a tight schedule."

"Will you take a look at the list enclosed with your acceptance letter and tell me what you see?"

"There are many items mentioned here…"

"Yes, as you can see the list of things mentioned in the second page of the letter, we have to buy those before the day ends. I suggest that you make haste and pack all your things, we'll be leaving soon."

Just as Harry moved to the cupboard to pack his things, she turned to Petunia who looked afraid, confused, embarrassed and a little happy at her nephew's apparent departure. Minerva then gained the other woman's attention with her threatening tone, "This behaviour towards Mister Potter is unacceptable, it is simply offensive and unacceptable. When I leave this house, informing the proper authority or choosing not to, depends entirely on what reply you're about to give me now, so choose your next words very carefully."

"You act as if this is wholly our fault. It isn't like we were asked or consulted with any of this. One morning, you lot just dumped the boy on our doorstep with only a letter. We never wanted him to begin with; you should be grateful that we've allowed him to live under our roof and gave him food from our table." Petunia angrily defended herself vehemently.

Before Petunia could continue, Minerva held her hand up and said sternly, "Enough…, I've heard enough from you. Expect some legal summoning from the child protection services. And remember this Petunia, if it was you and your husband who had died and if it was your son who was sent to live with Lily, she would've raised him as her own and you too know that to be true. How someone as despicable as you can be related to someone as compassionate as Lily, escapes me entirely, you and your husband should be ashamed of yourself."

With that, the headmistress walked away from the dining room, leaving a fuming Petunia who unsurprisingly had no reply. Minerva walked towards the front door and waited just outside the cupboard door as the child packed whatever things he thought he would need. As he finished his packing, Minerva immediately shrunk the bag and handed it to the astonished boy. With that, Minerva McGonagall opened the front door and held it for Harry to exit and when he did, Minerva followed outside and then she led Harry away without looking back not even once. She had nothing else to say to Petunia and all that mattered to her was satisfying the boy who was walking with her.

Little did Minerva know, that what had just happened was partly due to the effects of compulsion charm placed in the house by a certain time-traveller four years ago, that was what made Petunia rebel back the way she did. The thirty-seven-year-old had anticipated the possibility of his younger-self returning to that 'wretched' house every year after school having no choice but to listen to his headmaster. Hence he placed a lasting compulsion charm that would compel his relatives to act snobbishly towards anyone with magical authority who may or may not visit the house in the future. He did so in hopes that any of the magical people who come in contact with the Dursleys would be able to understand just how despicable of people they really are and to some level his plan worked, because now, Minerva McGonagall had no intention of returning young Mister Potter back to these muggles, if she had a say in the matter.

* * *

 _ **Leaky Cauldron-**_

Minerva opened the door of the small, dingy but welcoming pub. Minerva led a young raven-haired boy behind her; he was still a little wobbly from their ride in via the Knight Bus. Harry looked around and found many strangely dressed people sitting, chatting and having a drink. He noticed that the fireplace burned with a dark greenish hue and also noticed a man having his face immersed in the fire and he was more than a little disturbed by it.

"Minerva, Gillywater I presume?" The bartender greeted loudly.

"Sorry Hamish, maybe another time, on official Hogwarts business I'm afraid." She replied back to the man.

Minerva didn't want her charge to be exposed to the circumstances of his fame before he really knows about his early life and ancestry; hence she had the forethought of placing both 'glamour' and 'notice-me-not charm' on him, so none in the pub, noticed who he was.

"Professor, what was that man doing having immersed his face into the green fire?"

"Oh, that is what we refer to as a floo-call in the magical world. You can contact other people through your fireplace connected to their fireplace, it's the magical equivalent to the telephone. One usually steps into the fireplace and loudly calls out his/her destination and throws the floo powder at the fireplace below, to activate it."

"Wow…" Minerva smiled at the boy curiosity.

A few moments later, he again began, "Also, professor, I don't think we can buy all these things in London…"

She in return to his statement smiled at him and silently led him to the back door of the pub and there she tapped the brick wall five times with her wand and the wall opened as the bricks slowly cleared away and revealed a large archway. He peered inside the alley in amazement and saw a breath-taking sight of an assortment of restaurants, shops, and other sights. There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon and many more that he couldn't possibly remember.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley, Mister Potter. This is where we're going to buy all of your supplies." She replied casually and then walked in through the archway.

He walked in through the archway following behind McGonagall. Just as soon as he stepped on the cobblestoned street, he sensed the magic around him to be so dense that it was almost suffocating for him. Having lived in a magically inactive environment for a very long time, he was unaccustomed to this atmosphere; therefore his overdeveloped sensory abilities were overwhelmed by the sheer density and strength of the ambient magic in the air.

He stopped walking and staggered around in confusion being unable to breathe. Minerva who failed to notice this kept walking forward and disappeared into the crowd. Meanwhile, he staggered and found a sidewall to his left and he used it to support himself from falling. He then kneeled on his left knee, closed both his eyes and balled his right palm and held the knuckles to his forehead and concentrated on his senses. A few minutes later, he was successful in closing off all of his sensory abilities and all of a sudden the choking feeling left him and he felt normal.

Minerva who was walking towards Gringotts slightly turned her head to the right and said, "Mister Potter, this is the Grin…" She never finished as she realised that the boy who was supposed to be following her was missing. She looked around for a few minutes and when she couldn't find him she drew out her wand, just as she was about to cast a spell, she spotted her charge kneeling on one knee beside an empty wall.

She immediately walked over to him, the closer she got more she realised that her charge was in distress. "Mister Potter, are you alright?" She asked him with obvious concern etched in her tone.

"I'm alright professor." He stood up and faced her as if everything was fine, Minerva eyed him dubiously for a brief moment, but then she nodded and led him towards the bank, deciding to inquire about the situation at a later time.

"Mister Potter that is the Gringotts Wizarding bank..." She pointed at an imposing snow-white multi-storeyed marble building that towered over the neighbouring shops, located partway down the street near its intersection with another nearby street.

"Professor, why are we going to the bank?"

"We have to buy the list of things mentioned in the letter, Mister Potter, and for that we need money, don't we?"

"Are we going to take a loan?" He asked acting oblivious.

"No Mister Potter, we're about to withdraw money."

"But don't I need an account with money in it, for us to withdraw it in the first place?"

"Oh dear…" She realised her mistake, as she remembered that the boy who was following her had no idea of his parents' wealth and his inheritance, "Mister Potter, I forgot to tell you that your parents were reasonably wealthy. They've left you with quite a lot of wealth."

"They have…? But aunt Petunia said that my father didn't have a job or anything for that matter."

Minerva looked at the boy with an unhidden sympathy and then she replied, "Your parents did have jobs, Mister Potter. When your mum graduated from Hogwarts she immediately applied for an apprenticeship under Professor Filius Flitwick, who is a specialist in Charms, and she continued on by acquiring her Mastery on Charms within a year's time, which is no mean feat, she then joined the Department of Mysteries as an 'unspeakable'. Your father, however, joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as an 'auror' just as soon as he graduated from Hogwarts. Your parents were the Headgirl and Headboy of their year at the time of their graduation."

"Professor, what does an 'auror' and 'unspeakable' mean?"

"Aurors are the magical equivalent of law enforcement officers and Unspeakables are researchers who do research on magic itself but under strictly classified laws."

"So my mum was a scientist and my dad was a police officer? Wow, to be frank, I never expected that."

"What kind of money, do we use on this side of the world?" He asked curiously, he knew that if his ploy was to work then he needed to make things convincing.

"We use Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. Galleons are gold coins; one Galleon is equal to 17 Sickles or 493 Knuts. Sickles are made up of silver, whereas one Sickle is equal to 29 Knuts. And Knuts are bronze; they are the least valuable of the three."

"Professor, I've saved a great deal of regular money, will it be useless?"

"No Mister Potter, you can exchange muggle money for Galleons in the bank and vice versa." She replied with her rare smile, seeing his curiosity to be a wonderful thing which reminded her of his mother. Today was an exception since Minerva's usually rare smile was visible several times in the last few hours alone.

"Hold your questions until later, I'll answer them in due time. We're here…" She said as they walking up the steps of the bank. As they walked up the set of white stairs that led up to a set of burnished bronze doors, which were flanked by a goblin guards in a uniform of scarlet and gold. As they walked through, they entered a small entrance hall with another set of doors also flanked by goblin guards, but these doors were silver and words were engraved on the silver doors.

 _Enter, stranger, but take heed_

 _Of what awaits the sin of greed_

 _For those who take, but do not earn,_

 _Must pay most dearly in their turn_

 _So if you seek beneath our floors_

 _A treasure that was never yours,_

 _Thief, you have been warned, beware_

 _Of finding more than treasure there_

Through the last door, was a vast marble hall with long counters stretching along its length, with doors leading off to the vault passageways and having around a hundred goblins sitting at them. They continue to the centre spot, where a smallish, wrinkle-skinned creature with the longest, sharpest-pointed ears he had ever seen. He assumed this creature to be the goblin bank's head teller; its squinty eyes looked up from the desk it sat at and peered down its long, pointy-as-its-ears nose at them both.

"Professor, what are these things?" He asked whisperingly while eyeing all around him.

"They are goblins, Mister Potter. Beware they are extremely intelligent and rather very cunning, but not the friendliest of beings that you'll come across in this world. If you be careful and respectful you'll get along just fine." Minerva advised very seriously.

Minerva took a step forward to meet with the head teller's gaze and spoke loudly enough, "Mister Harry Potter would like to make a withdrawal."

"Does Mister Harry Potter have his key?" The head teller asked peering past the professor to meet with his eyes, with a menacing smile in place.

"He does…" Minerva said as she retrieved the golden key from inside her robes and showed it to the teller.

Minerva, however, wasn't finished as she held a letter to the teller and said, "Headmaster Dumbledore has sent this letter to you."

The head teller took the letter and quickly read through it, a few moments late the teller replied, "Very well…, Daggerskin will show you to the vaults."

Then a young goblin walked up to them and led them to the mine carts and the ride down to the vaults was fun. First, they reached vault 687 there the goblin named Daggerskin stepped out of the cart first and said, "Vault 687"

"Lamp please…"

Minerva handed the lamp to the goblin and they both stepped out, meanwhile, the goblin walked towards the vault and said, "Key please." Professor McGonagall then handed the key to the goblin and the said goblin inserted it into the vault's door and twisted it to its right once. The Vault door opened and there was a pile of gold coins in various heaps and he was obviously astonished despite knowing that he was wealthy. As soon as the door opened, the goblin returned the key back to her.

"Professor, how much would I need for the school supplies?"

"Normally fifty Galleons would have been enough, but under the circumstances, I would suggest withdrawing one hundred Galleons."

"Why, professor?"

"You're new to this side of the world, Mister Potter. You would need to ' _learn'_ what it is like to ' _live'_ here and for that, you would need materials that will help you on a day to day basis to better take care of yourself, materials that are additional to your school supplies."

He accepted McGonagall's answer and he gathered around a hundred Galleons and he deposited them in the pouch Minerva provided him with.

"Mister Potter, here is your key." She said and handed him the small golden key.

He took the key in his hand and he beheld her curiously, she seeing his look, began, "Mister Potter, this is your vault; hence I cannot hold the key, at any cost. That being said, you shouldn't lend or give this key to anyone, not even for a short period of time. Do you understand Mister Potter?" He stiffly nodded, sensing the seriousness of the situation from her impassive yet stern tone.

After that, they got back on the cart that led them further down the mines and they reached vault 713. "Vault 713…" The goblin said out loud as they reached their destination.

They exited the cart and the goblin named Daggerskin went to the vault door and placed the pointy nail of its pointer finger on the vault and drew it upwards horizontally. As the goblin finished, he heard the noises of several metals clinking together behind the door and finally, the door opened.

Inside the vault, at the centre beneath the light, there was a small grubby bag. Minerva walked inside and retrieved the small bag from the centre and she placed it inside her pouch and then she exited the vault. Seeing his curious look Minerva said, "Mister Potter, I would appreciate it if you kept this to yourself."

He mutely nodded to the professor's request and with that, they both stepped into the mine cart and headed back upwards to the bank. As they exited the mine cart, he set his next phase of plans in motion taking his time-travelling counterpart's suggestion. So he asked feigning his curiosity, "Professor, the amount of money we saw in my vault, is that the extent we can normally save when working here in this world?"

Minerva instantly understood the intended path of the question and so she replied straight away, "No, Mister Potter. The amount left behind as your inheritance mostly comes from your father's side. There are twenty-eight major pureblood families and many lesser families. The Potter family is one of the lesser pureblood families in our society. They had power and influence, I'm not saying that they didn't, but it cannot be compared to major pureblood families like Notts or Malfoys. Nevertheless, they were wealthy both in terms of riches and in terms of talent."

Seeing that she understood the general intent of his curiosity, he asked unhesitatingly, "Professor, I have some questions regarding my wealth. Could you spare some time for us to make some quick inquiries to the bank?"

"Mister Potter, we're still on a tight schedule, you could very well visit or owl the bank for some monthly or annual statements at a later time."

"Owl…?"

"That's how mail in this world works, Mister Potter." Minerva clarified with a faint smile on her face.

"Professor, sending an owl to the bank and asking for sensitive information hardly seems wise and even if I did visit at a later date, I'd need an adult to accompany me, don't I, and professor, I'd prefer you to accompany me more than my uncle or aunt." He replied back logically.

Minerva whipped out her wand and cast a 'tempus charm' to check the time, it was a little over eleven o'clock and her deadline to submitting the 'philosopher's stone' to Albus was at six in the evening. It may seem like a lot of time, but she knew how quickly the time would run out. She had to finish shopping for Harry and explain things about his family and his identity to him and then figure out Harry's accommodation away from his relatives. And she had to do all of this before six o'clock in the evening. She thought for a few minutes, Harry's argument had merit in it too, it didn't seem wise to let an almost completely magically isolated boy like Harry deal with the cunning goblins alone without adult supervision and even if there was to be an adult, then she definitely wouldn't trust the Dursleys.

Minerva sighed shortly and she stated, "Perhaps, I could spare a few minutes Mister Potter, however, I have a better plan than your solution on the topic of your doubts hence shall I try a different approach?" He in return grinned brightly and excitedly nodded in agreement.

Minerva again led him to the head teller and requested, "Mister Potter would like a clearly detailed and most recently updated written statement explaining the former and current statuses of his assets."

The head goblin stared at Minerva for a few minutes to which she stared back and then the head goblin glanced at Harry for a second. The head goblin then whispered something into the nearby goblin's pointy ear. And immediately the other goblin turned around and walked into the bank. Almost five minutes later, the goblin returned with a huge tome-sized file that seemed rather heavy.

The head teller claimed the tome-sized file from the other goblin's hand and opened it and glanced at the first page for a few minutes. Minerva who was watching closely noticed the slight sneer on the goblin's face, whereas the boy behind her was lost because he couldn't distinguish the sneer from the goblin's natural look.

As the head goblin finished glancing through the first page, the goblin placed the file on the desk. Minerva immediately reached upwards to the desk and took it and then she stashed it into the bottomless bag she made for Mister Potter, in which he was holding the money and then she turned around and walked away leading her charge away with her. It was obvious to her that the goblins were unnerved by her request and she was sure that for whatever reason it was, it would most likely be mentioned in the file.

"Professor, why did you ask for a detailed written statement, I only had a few doubts?"

"It's better to read extensive details from a material and find facts rather than ask several questions to the goblins which would undoubtedly tarnish your reputation and above that we don't have any guarantee that the goblins will answer your questions impartially. Now, since we've this file, I can very well take my time to read this thoroughly and explain everything to you or you yourself can read this and clarify your doubts by discussing the things you don't understand with me. It's a much better option than asking long tedious questions and wasting precious time."

"I have a reputation? Why would asking simple questions to the goblins tarnish my reputation?"

"I'll explain everything in due time, Mister Potter. All in due time…"

Seeing her charge's frown she calmly asked, "Now we still have lots to buy and a little time, so shall we get going?"

"I promise you that I'll answer all of your questions and clarify all your doubts at the end of the day. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes…" He replied understanding her situation.

"Good…, let's go." With that Minerva walked out the bank and he followed behind her.

* * *

 _ **With this, I'm wrapping up this chapter. And lads, I would like to know what I lack in the story and where I lack it. I'm all ears people, so you don't have to complain about me not listening.**_

 _ **And this is a fanfic, the characters being OOC is an unwritten rule. If you want a 'not OOC' canon character story then read the books again because when it comes to fanfic, the individual authors are bound to change the story, the attitude and personality of the canon characters. And for the last time, this won't be an immediate Harmony romance situation; over time the Harmony background will be built to establish a healthy relationship. So you don't have to scream at me every time I make a mistake.**_

 _ **And people, considering from the readers' point of view, give me tips on how to make this story more likely and believable. In my previous attempts at fanfictions, I tried making the main heroic characters humble and modest or my best at least, but that doesn't seem to be enough. Please feel free to review and criticise, but when do you criticise, at least be a little respectful and not use foul languages and even if you do, please, leave my parents out of it.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **News- 'And people, if you want to read the chapters at your earliest, then read the same story in Inkitt. My profile name is the same and same is the name of the story. It's user-friendly and rather comfortable to use, so I'll be continuing there, but I will also be updating '** _ **here**_ **'.'**

 **The link to my profile page is joenaruhina57. You'll find the story there…**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Snape bashing… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing…**

* * *

 _ **Flourish and Blotts-**_

Harry watched mutely, as his about-to-be professor kept stacking up book after book on the counter desk of the bookshop, while decisively ignoring the look the shopkeeper was giving them. They had just finished purchasing clothes in 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions' and he was very happy and immensely satisfied with the results.

Professor McGonagall did help him purchase his Hogwarts uniforms. Yes, however, she didn't stop there. She also gave him some suggestions on buying a few additional coats for summer and winter uses and a trench coat for the monsoon. She also vehemently insisted that he must buy new clothes that would better fit him rather 'than the rags he wore'. He supposed that McGonagall must have seen the clothes' condition in his bag, hence the reason for her insistence on the matter. However, he replied equally stubbornly that it was unnecessary because he didn't want an entire wardrobe filled with old-fashioned clothes, so he planned to buy his wardrobe, at a later time.

And so, once they finished their shopping for clothes, they made their way to the bookshop, and here he was instantly surprised because professor McGonagall apparently felt the need to buy him several other books and booklets additional to his course books.

He walked to the front desk and he diligently looked through the materials. As he was browsing through the books, he found two 'muggleborn introduction guides' among the books, the booklets piqued his interest. On the surface they seemed to be different, hence out of curiosity, he skimmed through the contents of them both. Just as soon as he finished, he felt surprised because he pretty much found the same topics and contents discussed in them both.

"Professor, what's a muggleborn?" He asked feigning his curiosity.

Minerva was busy browsing for some good books that would keep the interest of a boy his age; as such she was surprised when she heard the question. She turned around to her charge and found the boy holding two booklets in his hand. A thick brown booklet and a slightly thinner green one, she knew what those materials were. It was the 'muggleborn introduction booklets', she realised that it must have intrigued her young charge, for him to glance through the booklets. She thought it would help the boy understand the eccentricity of the magical world, just like it helped his mother, seeing that his curiosity reminded her very much of Lily.

She was broken out of her musing when she realised that she had been absentmindedly staring at the boy for a few moments, so she replied immediately, "Muggleborns are magical children born to non-magical parents. In this side of the world, the non-magical people are usually referred to as muggles and the term muggleborn was further derived from it."

"Those booklets will be of great use to you since you are raised in the muggle world." She further added after a brief moment of pause.

He looked at the booklets in his hand and he asked, "Professor, even if it so, why do I need two different 'muggleborn introduction packages', I read through the contents, they both pretty much say the same thing, isn't it?"

"The thicker booklet, mainly discusses the history of the wizarding world, the creation of Britain's Ministry of Magic and its branches among other things. It will undoubtedly help you get a better perspective on the magical world and its diversities. However, the thinner one mainly stresses on the topic of the various career opportunities available in our world…, after one's seven years of schooling of course. It also further goes about explaining the eligibility criteria and requirements for the chosen streams of the career. It's for muggleborn children who work better when they have a long-term goal." He looked at both the booklets curiously and he looked back at the professor who obviously knew everything, he then shrugged and disappeared among the shelves looking for books that would interest him, books he could select.

Minerva again went back to find the books she thought would be necessary for her charge. Meanwhile, he wandered a little bit among the store looking at the bookshelves filled with books stacked up to the ceiling, in evident wonder. His _'brother'_ told him that he had an inborn talent for 'Defensive Arts', so he was browsing through the shelves for any such books.

He stood there glancing through the contents page of the book called 'Defence and Duelling'. All of a sudden he was pushed from behind and he fell down face first dropping the book in his hand. Since he had chosen to close off all of his sensory skills to better work in the magically dense atmosphere until his senses could adapt to it, he absolutely didn't sense anything even when in close proximity.

Fortunately, before he could even try and get up, he was gently pulled up by someone, whom he was sure were the ones who pushed him down in the first place. He turned around to face whoever it was that pushed him down and helped him up. He flinched and blinked for a few moments as he took in the red hair, freckles and the sniggering eyes of not one, but two boys who looked older than him.

Upon some scrutiny, the boys didn't seem to be looking for books, it rather seemed like they were hiding from something or someone. As he was observing the twins annoyedly, the one on the right said in a quiet tone, "Oh, please do forgive us. My uglier brother Fred is rather very less graceful than I am."

"Oi, you are Fred, I'm George…" The one on the left immediately retaliated faking a hurt look while the boy's eyes betrayed the lethargy and mischievousness in them.

"I am not."

"You are…"

His annoyance vanished quickly as he noticed the two bickering and he involuntarily chuckled at the twins. Seeing him chuckle at them, the one on the right began, "Where are my manners, I am George Weasley and he's my uglier twin, Fred."

"No, no, no, no…" The one on the left shook his head negatively, "I am George Weasley and he's MY twin, Fred."

As the two playfully bickered again over who was George and who was George's twin Fred, he smiled and chuckled at them again. He said to himself, _"Game face, game face, time to make friends…"_

"Can't one of you be Fred and the other, his twin George?" He asked in an attempt to derail them both.

The one on the right began, "I suppose, I could be Fred and him, my twin, George."

"But I like it better that I'm Fred and you're George." The one on the left teased.

"Hah, I know which one of you is Fred and which one is George." He spoke confidently sporting a huge grin on his face.

"Oh, do you now…?" Both asked simultaneously like they could read each other's minds.

He pointed at the right one and said, "You're Fred", then he pointed at the one on the left and said, "…and he is George."

The twins glanced at each other for a brief moment and then the one on the left, whom he identified as George said with a smile, "Ah, but I could be Fred and him, my twin George."

"Hah, you just confirmed my hunch." He chuckled again amusedly and the twins looked thrilled.

"What do you think, Gred?" George asked his brother.

"I think we have a Ravenclaw, Forge."

"I quite like him, Gred."

"I too agree, I think he'll fit in nicely, Forge."

"I'm Harry…" He introduced himself to the funny twins. He realised that the brothers didn't care who was who, or about their confusing names.

"Nice to meet you, Harry…"

"Nice meeting you ' _two'_ , Gred, Forge." He greeted jokingly while particularly stressing the ' _two'_ in his greeting.

He remembered hearing about the Weasley twins from his _brother_ , during his brother's explanation four years ago. These two were the infamous pranksters that even the notorious 'Peeves the poltergeist' saluted at, during their departure from school. These pranksters fit the description of their potential for pranks and they matched his _brother's_ portrayal of them.

That's when George noticed the book he dropped earlier, lying discarded on the ground. The redhead picked it up immediately and examined the book curiously. Needless to say, George was surprised when he recognised the book to be a manuscript detailing advanced forms of Duelling and Defence.

"Interested in duelling are you, Harry?" George asked sounding both curious and amused.

He lied while sounding bored, "Not really, I was just browsing for some interesting books, while professor McGonagall is getting my course books."

"Is she here…?" Fred asked alarmed by his revelation.

"Is who here?"

"Professor McGonagall…" George clarified for his brother.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at them suspiciously a bit and then he replied, "Yes, she is near the counter, why?"

"Did she bring you to Diagon Alley…?" Fred began and stopped mid-way, as George continued and finished, "…for your school shopping!"

"Yes, she did." The twins glanced at each other for a moment in panic.

Fred leant forward and spoke, "Harry…, could you do us a favour?"

"I'm listening."

Fred looked at George and the twin continued, "Forget that we were ever here."

He cracked a suspicious yet mischievous grin and replied back with a giggle, "Done…"

The twins grinned back at him and both advised simultaneously, "Make sure to stay clear of Knockturn Alley's entrance for the next hour." He held his hand out to them and the twins took turns as they shook on it.

With that, the twins quickly hurried away as they both simultaneously spoke, "Bye, Harry."

He called out to them quietly, "I'll see you both in Hogwarts?"

"Sure…" George, who was the first one to the door replied back sticking only his head inside the shop.

"We'll meet in Hogwarts express on September 1st…" Fred assured, and with that, Fred pushed George and the redheaded twins disappeared out the door.

* * *

 _ **Ollivanders-**_

He stood there inside the wand shop among the queue of people. They had bought all of the course books and many additional books, but in the end, he didn't select any of those said books, it was all Minerva's work. He had a huge grin on his face, as he just witnessed the prank on Knockturn Alley's entrance. It had somehow lightened the mood and taken away the overwhelming feeling of being out of place, which was something he was feeling since his entry in Diagon Alley. No matter what he knew about the magical world, witnessing it first hand was different on many levels than the mere knowledge of it.

He was glad that he listened to the redheaded twins' advice or else he too would have been a victim of their prank. He insisted to Minerva that they had to purchase his wand before they went to the apothecary near the Knockturn Alley's entrance. Ten minutes ago, there was a sudden explosion of pink smoke at the entrance and anybody who was closer to it instantly reeked of an almost suffocating and overpowering aroma of roses.

As soon as the explosion happened, somehow the transfiguration professor seemed to have an idea on who was behind the prank and immediately left him at Ollivanders and went to investigate. He too might have been suspicious if he hadn't known about the plot beforehand, since the explosion only happened in the presence of a group of tall boys who all looked rather proud at their skin, full of unhidden swagger in their gaze and a nasty attitude about them.

As he was musing, he bumped into someone on his right. He sighed instantly as he realised that he's been doing this too much lately; he turned to his right and he apologised, "I'm sorry…"

The tall brunette-haired woman he bumped into looked down on him while staring sternly into his eyes; her eyes seemed to wander all over him, finally her nose scrunched slightly. He watched her expressions carefully and concluded that this woman was disgusted by his physical appearance, like his clothes and untidiness.

The woman was wearing some stylish black clothes and a brown coat which looked a lot like fur; she also had what appeared to be a very costly handbag hanging on her elbow and a large, round and black pair of sunglasses staying clipped on her perfectly styled hair. It was glaringly obvious that she came from some upper-class family, but however what intrigued him was that the woman seemed like a muggle. A prejudiced muggle, that was a shocker, he pondered amusedly.

In the end, the woman gave him a curt nod accepting his apology and took a small step backwards and continued inspecting the interior of the dusty wand shop. He felt someone tap on his left shoulder; he turned the other side to see a brown eyed boy with curly blond hair standing there with a smirk.

The blond boy leaned closer and spoke whisperingly, "Don't worry; mum is like that to everyone. You see, she isn't exactly thrilled about me joining Hogwarts."

"Are you going to Hogwarts too?" The blonde boy asked clearly excited about something.

"Yes, I am."

"By the way, I'm Justin."

"Harry…" He replied with a bright smile and they both shook hands.

"Brilliant, isn't it, an entire world existing side by side of our world?" Justin asked obviously filled with awe and wonder. However, he also noticed the 'our' in the blonde boy's sentence, which meant that the boy was keen enough to surmise of him being from the muggle world judging by his clothes and looks.

Four years ago, he was just like this, filled with awe and wonder, 'too blinded by the superficial appeal of the magic world'. He analysed Justin and his mother, to him it seemed like Justin's mother was used to giving orders and have others do her work. It made perfect sense because from her expression indicated that she absolutely loathed doing any work and gave importance to superficial attractions like style and fashion. Thus, he assumed that it must be the lady's disgust to the wizarding world's lack of style. However, Justin, on the other hand, appeared to be rather bright and of high spirits.

"It is…"

Before Justin could continue any further, the family standing in front of him in the queue walked away having paid for the wand they bought for their boy. He stepped forward and stood before an old man whom he assumed to be Garrick Ollivander, the man had wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Ah, I was wondering when I would be seeing you, Mister Potter." Ollivander regarded him like he was a prize.

He was a little surprised that the wandmaker managed to identify him through the 'glamour spell'. His brother, however, had warned him about the wandmaker's eccentrics including the man's uncanny skills on the subject called Divination. Hence, he was at ease, even when he sensed the people behind him being perturbed a little due to the wandmaker's disturbing yet enthusiastic tone which was extraordinarily subdued just moments ago. He half-expected for the others in the shop to gasp or stare at him, but since the remaining two families in the shop other than him were muggles, they didn't give the impression of knowing about him or his story.

"Hello, Mister Ollivander." He greeted the man formally.

"You look like your father, Mister Potter, though your eyes resemble your mother's."

"Did you know them, sir?" He asked dubiously since his brother's details about this man were rather minimal at the most.

"No, but I never forget the people I've ever sold my wand to Mister Potter, especially a person like your mother, so very bright and curious, something that could be found in her eyes and _in yours_."

With the pleasantries out of the way, the wandmaker measured his dominant hand with a tape and walked to a shelf on his right and climbed up the ladder to get a long rectangular box and spoke mysteriously as he stepped down, "It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

Ollivander opened the box and took a long brown wand and held it out to him, "Vine…dragon heartstring…very pliant. Just like your mother's wand."

He took it and gave a lazy wave, and the flower vase beside the wandmaker burst as soon as his wand stopped, "No." Ollivander said as soon as the vase burst out and swiftly grabbed the wand from his hand.

Ollivander then took another wand and held it out to him, "Perhaps this one, twelve inches…cherry…unicorn hair." He took it and gave this one a wave, this time all the boxes on the shelf he pointed his wand at were ejected by itself.

"No, definitely not…"

Likewise, they tried more than three dozen other wands, but none of them worked for him. But, he had the nagging yet pulling feeling, a sensation that he just couldn't shake away and the feeling was becoming stronger and stronger as the time passed, he could feel the source of it emanating from the back shelf.

He ignored the latest wand held out to him, instead, he stretched his right hand and pointed to the shelf on the far right, behind the counter, towards its midsection and asked, "Mr Ollivander, what's there…?" Garrick seeing the boy's gaze beheld him curiously and then slowly walked to the said shelf and took a black wand box.

"I wonder…?" Garrick was astonished because even with his skills as a seer, he hadn't seen the possibility of the wand in question calling out for its master and certainly not the possibility of the said master being one, Harry Potter.

Ollivander walked back to the counter and held the opened box to him; he tentatively reached out and took it. An eleven inch long dark brown Holly wand, with a three inch long light brownish grey handle, it felt smooth and rather very comfortable to hold.

Just as soon as he gripped on it, he felt the air around him lighten and he felt the power surging around him and deep inside him. He felt as if he was standing in an illuminated light with a golden hue to it, a strange light that empowered every single fibre of his being, a light that felt like his own magic being represented in another form, a much stronger and more resilient form. Everyone inside the shop felt the tingling heat emanating from the golden red aura around Harry, the hair on their skin stood up as they felt it.

"Curious...how very curious...?"

As the aura dissipated, he asked dutifully, "Sorry, but what's curious?" He asked as this was something his brother precisely mentioned that he must ask at all costs, supposedly it will help him at a later time.

"I remember every single wand I've ever sold, Mr Potter. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather…just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."

After a moment's pause, he asked, "And who owned that wand?"

"Oh, we do not speak his name, for he did terrible things. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was one of the strongest dark wizards ever to exist." There was a short pause between them, while the remaining two muggle families in the shop were keenly listening to the conversation.

And surprisingly, he also noticed professor McGonagall's presence among the crowd behind him, who was someone he knew for a fact that she wasn't there until a while ago. "Thank you, Mr Ollivander. How much do I owe you?" He thanked the man and awkwardly asked the price being a little confused and very uncomfortable at the attention; he was used to doing things anonymously, a habit that served him well.

Ollivander reached forward and grabbed his left hand, he looked at the man and they locked eyes. A set of emerald green eyes filled with curiosity met a set of pale silvery eyes portraying unhidden marvel, Ollivander inexplicably gave him a cryptic statement, "Remember this Mister Potter, the wand chooses the wizard, it's not always clear why. A wand's allegiance, however, always comes where there is a strong affinity between the wizard and the wand. These connections are often very complex. It may start as an initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, to seek after power sometimes supremacy, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand. One thing is very clear from all of this; we can expect great things from you, Mister Potter. That will be seven Galleons…"

He didn't expect the man to finish his statement like that hence he was completely thrown off and unable to give back a reply, hence he resorted to simply nodding to the man. He opened the pouch and took the necessary money and paid the man. As he finished paying, Minerva walked behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder and then she quietly led him out of the shop.

* * *

 _ **Leaky Cauldron-**_

It was a little over four in the evening; Harry Potter and Minerva McGonagall were sitting in Leaky Cauldron having a conversation with something to eat. All of his books, clothes and anything that he would need to lead an independent life were in his new trunk, a specifically tailored and enchanted trunk that would fit all of his items inside. It took him quite a bit of time to convince Minerva to allow him to buy the customised trunk, but it was definitely worth the effort and the money.

The trunk itself was placed horizontally on the right side of the table. Hedwig's cage was resting on top of the trunk and the snowy white owl was quietly sitting and staring at them both. It was almost like the owl could comprehend what they were talking amongst themselves; his brother had failed to mention this too.

Minerva explained to him about the first wizarding war and the dark days that prevailed back then. She then explained to him about how a dark wizard named Voldemort seemingly appeared out of nowhere and started gathering followers endorsing the agenda of blood-purity. She then went on about his parents' role in the war and very briefly about the Order of the Phoenix. About how Voldemort tried to recruit his parents to the dark side, but when they refused, the despotic dark wizard apparently tried to murder them. However, his parents were skilled enough to escape from the tyrant's clutches and they managed to do the same another two times after the first attempt.

Then his parents went into hiding, for better protection, supposedly his father insisted on it when his mother was pregnant with him. Apparently, a year after he was born, his parents was put under another reinforced protection but were betrayed. She also bitterly disclosed to him the details about the betrayal and about their hiding place in Godric's Hollow. And about how Voldemort found and murdered them and tried to kill him too and somehow he miraculously survived while Voldemort perished.

She then rather very reluctantly elucidated the nature of the curse that was used on him. And how, by surviving it did he make history, which supposedly gave him both fame and an elevated social standing in the wizarding world. Then she used this and reasoned for why she used the 'glamour spell' on him to better conceal him to ease the shopping trip.

Hearing all of this from his brother was one thing, but hearing it from McGonagall, a person who knew his parents on a more personal note was quite another. He then continued asking various questions about his parents as it was another topic in which his brother was light on. He guessed that it must be the fact that his brother was just like him, the chances of _him_ knowing about mum and dad was the same as him. Meanwhile, McGonagall seemed to know many things about his parents, according to her, his parents studied together and were both sorted into Gryffindor. Supposedly, his father was a very popular boy in school and he had a gang of close friends called the 'Marauders'. Apparently, his father and his friends were rather very close and they were the most notorious pranksters of their age. She also told him that his father was very good in the 'Art of Transfiguration' and particularly talented at battle transfiguration and Conjuration. And also that he was very good on a broomstick, especially a better 'Chaser' than most in his age group (whatever that was).

His mother, on the other hand, was very studious, curious and brilliant. She had a few friends, mostly her dormmates. She had a talent for the 'Art of Potion-Making', Charms and Ancient Runes. But she was more talented and interested in Charms than the others. Hence, she had gained her Mastery on Charms in almost a year, which is a record that none had broken till to this date.

Apparently, at the beginning, his parents didn't seem to get along with each other and over the years this feud of theirs only grew bigger. Apparently, his father's self-confidence bordering on arrogance and his mother's extreme stubbornness had sparked an enmity between them. But around their fourth year, his father had been attracted to mum due to her unimpressed opinion of his popularity and he made no attempt to keep it a secret. And eventually his father's perseverance had won out at the end and during their sixth year, they had made peace and were neutral towards each other from that point onwards. As a result, his father had taken it up to see things from his mum's point of view and changed for the better and by the end of their seventh year, his parents were very much in love.

From the deputy headmistress's explanation, it was obvious that Minerva didn't know his parents on a more personal level than just on a friendly basis, but any information about them was appreciated nonetheless. As his soon-to-be professor was continuing with her explanation, he interrupted her, "Wait…, my parents got married when they were eighteen?"

"Yes…"

"Why?" He asked trying to make sense of that piece of information.

"Most couples get married around that age, Mister Potter…" Minerva replied in an obvious tone.

"No, they don't…"

"I believe your aunt got married when she was nineteen…" Minerva replied in a factual tone.

"My relatives, they are an exception." He defended even after knowing that it was unfair judging and eliminating his relatives from the regular community.

"Mister Potter, I can understand your confusion, in the muggle world, they might not get married that early, but here, it's different. According to the recent census conducted by the Ministry of Magic, the average age at which couples get married is twenty; the average age difference between the couples is two years, independently married that is… But fifteen years ago, the average was still somewhere around eighteen years of age, which is by all means normal."

"Professor, you told me that my mum was apprenticed under someone called Flitwick as soon as she graduated and dad became a…, auror was it? If that's so, then how did they get married so soon?" He asked logically.

Minerva began with a smile, "As the war was progressively becoming worse, your father was so motivated that he became a full-fledged auror within four months, while most trainee aurors usually took six. As I stated earlier, your father was very good in transfiguration, especially battle transfiguration, he could literally turn the dust in his surroundings to mask the movements of every single one of his squad members and protect them from spells that cannot be blocked or diverted, he was truly gifted. Hence, your parents got married as soon as he became an 'auror', but they stayed apart for many months in the beginning so that your mother could finish her apprenticeship. The distance between them was what motivated them both to succeed in their respective fields, as soon as they did, _until they chose to quit_." Minerva muttered the last few words.

However, he heard clearly enough, he asked incredulously, "They quit their jobs…?"

"There are many reasons behind it, Mister Potter. Your mother was a muggleborn, hence due to the blood-purist prejudice, even with her credentials; she couldn't find a job in the ministry. So, as much as your mother hated it, your father had to resort to using his family's name and reputation to get her an unprejudiced re-interview with the help of your grandfather's oldest friend Cecilia. Subsequent to that, your mother became an 'unspeakable', but due to the social class divisions that were at its peak at that time, she had a hard time accepting the divisions in her workplace and being accepted by her pureblood colleagues, despite her immense talents. Hence in the short time that she worked there in the ministry, she ended up disliking her dream job. However, a few months later, your mother was conceived with you and around that same time, your paternal grandparents died of dragon-pox so both your parents _had_ to quit their jobs. Your mother did so in order to care for her and for you, while your father did so because as Lord Potter he had to actively keep a closer eye on the family businesses." Minerva described the details rather hesitantly because she didn't think it was wise giving the boy so much information. But since she had spent quite a bit of time recollecting all the memories and information for the young boy, she couldn't find a valid reason to keep the information to herself.

Hell, she even went as far as to arguing with Albus Dumbledore to make the headmaster permit her to escort the young boy for his re-entry into the wizarding world. Because headmaster was deranged enough to choose one Severus Snape for the job, a man she knew to be unfit for such tasks let alone manage children.

"And was this before they went into hiding?" He asked curiously trying to fit the pieces of a complicated puzzle.

"Yes…" To this, he looked sad to learn that his parents had given up their dream jobs for him.

Seeing the young boy's frown and discomfort she decided to ease the boy, "Mister Potter, this is a very important lesson that you have to understand. The wizarding world may seem to be overly obscure at times, but never be afraid. You shouldn't always compare the magical world with the muggle world because this is something most muggleborn children have trouble with. These social stipulations or to be more accurate _specifications_ may have lost its momentum in the muggle world with the growth of technology, but here, it isn't as such. You must understand development in fashion and social restrictions and leniency of the said restrictions have been more sedated since the founding of the 'Ministry of Magic' in the seventeenth century. According to one of the muggle families I met a few years ago, they said that our magical world is still stuck in the 'Georgian era' and I believe that's what they said. I, of course, disagree with this because social class divisions may have been of violent nature in the past, but our community, however, has moved past it since the end of the last wizarding war."

He disagreed with the woman's theory, knowing what was up ahead and for the fact that the first wizarding war only ended merely a decade ago. But he wasn't going to voice it and go into another discussion about it because he was more interested in learning about the file the goblins gave them; hence he simply accepted the Transfiguration professor's reply to let her continue on with the explanation.

The transfiguration professor continued on with explaining the things that the witches and wizards in the magical world would naturally expect others to know. Finally, the topic regarding Gringotts came, McGonagall briefly informed him about the rough history they had with the Goblin race and the complicated situation regarding the bank and its customers. And then she began reading through the material that was handed to them by the goblins.

After reading through everything in the file for almost forty minutes, she looked at him intensely for a few minutes and then her face softened to resemble her general impassiveness that she sported all the time. "Mister Potter, all you need to know about your wealth is that you have two vaults in Gringotts, a few pieces of land and two shops in Carkitt Market and one in Horizont Alley. And apart from that, you have your grandparents' house in Oxfordshire."

"Professor, what is the other vault and how much do I have in that?"

"Mister Potter, it really isn't necessary for you to know everything." She felt like that she had already given the boy a lot of information, giving out anymore didn't seem wise.

"Professor with all due respects, how do you know that I don't need to know everything?" He asked back being a little annoyed that she was withholding information regarding his wealth.

"You are too young to know all of this, Mister Potter." She insisted sternly.

"Age is no guarantee of maturity, professor." He replied tactfully.

Minerva raised her left eyebrow regarding the boy's cheek and countered back, "Your maturity is hardly relevant, Mr Potter. No matter how mature you are, you're still a child. Temptation has no regard for a person's age; it affects everyone equally."

"Professor, I just found out that I had parents who truly loved me and that I belong to an entirely different world. What is the point of introducing me to this world, if everyone else knows more about me than I myself?" He asked back mustering a cute pout and a sad look.

Minerva sighed and muttered to herself, "I'm going to regret this…"

"What do you want to know, Mister Potter?" Minerva asked rather hesitantly.

And he gave her an obvious look since he had already asked her the question, "Everything…"

"Very well, so be it."

"As you know, Vault 687 is your trust vault… And Vault 914, which is the Potter Family's Main Vault… The Potter Family's Main Vault contains all the material possessions, such as your family's jewellery, deeds for a few pieces of lands and for the shops that I mentioned earlier and Potter family's collection of rare books and many other records regarding the old pureblood laws. Those are all something you don't have to worry about until you become eighteen, which is when you'll be able to access the vault itself."

"And the trust vault?"

"That is quite another story, Mister Potter. Your parents created that trust vault as insurance for you so that you can lead a comfortable life in the future." Minerva replied thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

"According to the file, your father had several other businesses in Diagon Alley other than what you have now. Additional to it, he had stocks and shares in many companies and in many Ministry run agencies. And above that, he had a few houses apart from his parents' house."

"Had…? What happened to them?"

"Be patient, I was coming to that Mister Potter. Apparently two weeks after your grandparents' death which is around seven months before your birth, your mum and dad created the trust vault as an insurance policy in your name. As soon as they created it, your father sold off all the stocks, shares, all the business establishments apart from what you have now and the additional houses that they weren't using. He sold all of his assets, liquidated the money, consolidated it and deposited it in your trust vault."

"For what purpose…?"

"Your father had managed to make a lease-like agreement with the Goblin nation…"

"Oh…" He blurted out unintelligently as he nodded his head in agreement. Minerva, who understood that the young boy was obviously clueless about the delicate situation about his wealth and assets, so she decided to explain.

"Mister Potter, acquiring partnership with the goblin nation isn't exactly a usual thing. The goblins usually hesitate to make business _associations_ with wizards, trades and transactions, yes, but partnerships aren't usual, it isn't exactly rare, then again it isn't precisely common either. The goblins only prefer wealthy wizards who can pay them back or wizards who are in respectable positions in the Ministry who have the clientele to acquire the money from their contacts. Since both your parents had quit their jobs in the ministry during the time of the creation of the lease, I can only assume that your father must have had some substantial leverage against the goblins to procure such a secure yet profitable pact, which would explain the goblins' apparent discomfort with the situation."

"What kind of lease-like pact are we looking at, professor?" He asked curiously.

"Soon after the creation of your trust vault, your father deposited one million and four hundred thousand Galleons in them, which is roughly all of the consolidated money. The total period of the lease is fifteen years. For the first ten years, the goblin nation has complete and unrestricted access to the vault and its funds; meanwhile, you have no right to use it whatsoever. After the ten year mark, the unrestricted access is revoked and the goblins can only withdraw an amount of three hundred thousand Galleons, at a given time. However, this is only for another five years because by then the lease ends and all the money must be deposited back into the vault and given back to you. But there are several stipulations for this too because once the first ten years of the fifteen-year mark ends, the goblins must start reimbursing the trust vault with a four percent interest on a half-yearly basis for the next five years. By then, you will have also gained access to your trust vault but only a limited access, only four withdrawals in a year with no limit for deposits of course. And once the total fifteen-year mark is reached, the goblins must continue reimbursing the vault for another ten years, but on the condition of an eight percent interest on a quarterly basis." Minerva finished a little out of breath having explained everything in one stretch.

"How long has it been, since the start of the lease, professor?" He asked wanting to know if he had _enough_ access to the trust vault or not.

Minerva flipped a few pages of the file and replied, "Let's see…the lease began on December 27th, 1979. Thus, it has been a little over eleven and a half years. Don't you worry Mister Potter, you have access to the funds in your trust vault and the interest amount is being deposited properly as per the conditions set forth in the contract."

"Professor…, in your opinion, is this arrangement beneficial?" He was unable to see the complicated situation that lay tangled behind the lease-like contract made with the goblins.

Minerva wasn't surprised by the question, she immediately clarified his doubt, "Have no doubt Mister Potter; this isn't just beneficial, it is indeed very profitable for you."

"Professor, what is the need for such a leasing contract? Shouldn't the bank already give the users an interest for using their services?"

"Actually, this isn't like the banks that are found in the muggle world. Each and every customer of Gringotts has separate vaults and the goblins can't use the money in the vaults unless they have permission from the customer. And Mister Potter, the interest rate here usually is less than one percent on a yearly basis; at the most, four percent interest on a half-yearly scale is practically unheard off."

"If the goblins cannot touch the money in their customers' vaults, then how do they conduct business? How do they profit from their services of providing vaults for their customers? And why do they even care about compensating their clients' vaults with interest, if they are generously providing us with vaults for free?" He couldn't understand how a bank could profit let alone make money without circulating their clients' money for business.

"Technically we're only renting the vaults for our use; hence we do need to pay a fee for it, which is often deducted from the vaults." Minerva began and then paused for a second to take a sip from her goblet of mead.

"Here on this side of the world, there aren't any other banks to rival the goblins, so almost every single money based trade or transaction only happens via Gringotts including that of the Ministry's and that's how the goblins make their profit, 'via the commission amount gained by the transactions'. Goblin Nation has a subsequent influence on almost everything in the wizarding world. Just to be clear, the entire Goblin Nation dwells beneath us, going up to several hundred…kilometres under the ground, while we live on the surface. It was a truce that was achieved between us and the goblins over two millennia ago. During the creation of the Ministry of Magic, the truce was renegotiated and in exchange for their cooperation to the Ministry's rule over Magical Britain, we agreed to give the goblins the right to produce our currency, to handle the wizarding world's finances and to essentially coexist. Believe me, Mister Potter the goblins are immensely profited by this since any _gold_ of sufficient quality found goes to the goblins' hands by default." Minerva enlightened the curious boy.

"Gold…?"

"Gold, as in pure gold in its raw form, not in Galleons…!"

"Professor, you speak of the goblins with unhidden disdain in your tone. Surmising, in other words, the magical community simply doesn't give any thought to what happens to the goblins or their interests." He surmised the notion hidden behind their conversation.

"We've had a rough history with the goblins, Mister Potter."

"Isn't that the whole point of studying history? Not to repeat the mistakes of the past…?" He was disappointed; the time he has spent in the magical world has made sure of it. His initial outline was right; the wizarding world was broken in every aspect, too stagnant by the lack of different perspective among the governing people.

"Let's not indulge ourselves into politics, Harry." His eyes widened in surprise as the Transfiguration professor for the first time addressed him by his name. He nodded his head agreeing with her about not wanting to argue over politics.

They both were out of words for the next five minutes, as the awkward silence prevailed he finished his soup. Meanwhile, Minerva finished her mead and then whipped out her wand and cast a 'tempus charm'. It was half past five, she realised that she was cutting it close with her deadline, so she chose to end the shopping trip quickly.

She stood up from her chair, seeing that she was about to leave he too stood up to follow after her. Minerva who already anticipated this spoke quietly, "Mister Potter, I have spoken to Tom, the innkeeper of Leaky Cauldron. You can stay here for the rest of the summer. Tom has arranged a room for you and he will be honoured to have you stay here."

He felt like a weight has been removed from his shoulders, a heavy feeling that always weighed deeply on his heart, "Thank you, professor McGonagall." He thanked sincerely in order to convey his gratitude.

"Don't thank me yet, Mr Potter. This arrangement may be temporary…" She replied honestly not wanting to hide this and build the boy's hope.

"Professor…, why, can't I stay here…?" He stuttered for the first time as he asked with a rising dread in his heart.

"Because, no matter what we decide, headmaster Dumbledore has the ultimate say in this…I'll buy you some time, nonetheless, you can expect a visit from the headmaster in the coming weeks."

"Why…?"

"After today, headmaster Dumbledore has an appointment in South America for the next two weeks, only by then will he return. I'll keep your temporary relocation to myself until then, but I'll have to disclose this to him sooner or later. I doubt that when he does find out, that he will let you stay here, hence I suggest that you use your time wisely and get accustomed to the eccentricities of this world, while you're here."

"I mean, why do I have to listen to him?" He clarified his question while sounding very tired.

"He is your magical guardian…"

"He is a what?" He sighed heavily being bored of having to pretend like he didn't know anything.

"Magical guardians are adults who have a priority of considering the welfare of children that they care for, usually headmaster Dumbledore becomes the magical guardian to all muggleborn children and any orphan who study at Hogwarts without someone looking after them. As a magical guardian, any underage child when in the magical world is naturally under the guardian's guidance and protection." Minerva enlightened him calmly.

"In other words, I have to obey him without questions…" He monotonously stated it to no one in particular.

"That's a rather very poor interpretation, but in a nutshell, yes." Minerva agreed to the boy's crude analysis because she was still a little dissatisfied of how Albus ignored her wisdom and placed the boy with his relatives, as a result a bright and innocent child was abused for the most part of his life.

Minerva, who was still standing, moved to the pub and spoke to the innkeeper about some last minute details and she walked back to him. She was tired of explaining things to the curious young boy. Having spent most of the day with the young Potter, she understood that the questions would never end. Besides that, she had this feeling that it would be better if the boy learned through first-hand experience or through trial and error than simply feeding him precise information.

She then spoke decisively, "You can stay upstairs for the next two weeks. I'll check up on you every three days and if you have any doubts, you can clear it up with me then. Don't be shy to ask Tom if you need anything." With that, she handed him the money bag, which had the remaining forty Galleons in them.

"I'll see you, Mister Potter." And Minerva bid farewell to her charge.

"Likewise, professor and thank you…"

The strict disciplinarian woman gave him a swift nod and walked away through the door that led her back into the mundane world. As he watched her leave, for some reason that he quite couldn't comprehend, for the first time in a long time, he felt right at home. He frankly didn't care what his brother would lecture him about meddling with the timeline, if he told him about his stay in the Leaky Cauldron, nonetheless he felt _free_.

* * *

 _ **Hi people, sorry for the delay. It took me a while to get my head right after a few issues that have been going on in my life. This is mostly a filler chapter to get the story to Hogwarts. Actually, I wanted to stretch the whole shopping trip for a few more chapters, but I got a message saying not to do it, and I quote 'would make your story like all the other failed attempts at plausible time-travel story'. I disagree with your thoughts on this my friend, but I have chosen to end the shopping trip here just like you wished because frankly, I can't wait to get to Hogwarts.**_

 _ **Question: - I want to know how the story's pace is, should I slow down the events or accelerate them?**_

 _ **I recently felt like people were pointing out to me that James and Lily didn't really love each other because of being married at a young age, so I included the little bit of conversation to convey to them of how the magical world worked. The magical world was still stuck in the seventeenth century and besides that, it was quite common for the marriage to happen at a young age. Look at Neville's parents, at the Dursleys who were muggles, Fleur who got married at around twenty-one and almost everyone in the magical world married around that same age, don't you think? So the next time you try to argue with me, get your perspective straight, mate.**_

 _ **Okay, I'll come out and say it. Didn't it bother you, people, to find a bank that has separate vaults for each and every one of its customers and still it functions like all the other normal banks found in the mundane world? A bank like Gringotts is how I imagined a bank would be like when I was just a six-year-old. It was one of the reasons that held my interest as I started reading the 'Philosopher's Stone'; I thought the bank would be developed into my childhood interpretation of how banks worked.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Snape bashing… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing…**

* * *

 _ **King's Cross Station (September 1**_ _ **st**_ _ **)-**_

He was sitting on one of the benches close to the wall. In front of him, on the tracks below there stood a gleaming hot red 4-6-0 steam engine hooked on to several carriages that stretched beyond his line of sight, the train remained stationary as children of varying ages were diligently boarding it. The people who moved past him ignored him entirely, but not out of choice, he was essentially invisible and of course 'unnoticeable' to everyone. It was eight minutes past ten; there was still a solid fifty-two minutes for the train to depart, so he wasn't worried in any way.

The last month and a half were both relaxing and enlightening, though, it was also rather boring. Granting, it wasn't as boring as it would have been if he had gone back to stay with his relatives, but it did get a little tedious so to speak. Make no mistake; he was glad that he didn't go back to the Dursley household, but his summer was far too intellectual for his tastes. For the first few days he found the entire learning process to be exciting, but soon the initial enthusiasm waned away because the learning process was too easy and it lacked the challenge. Professor McGonagall often came to visit him solely for the purpose of making sure that he was in no danger. And whenever she came, he would ask her several questions about the dysfunctional part of magical society and most likely end up arguing over inane things.

Whereas, he spent most of his time in the 'Alley' with Ollivander, who loved to talk about the creation of wands and the personalities those wands would acquire after its creation and the rare behaviours that it displayed sometimes. Since, he wanted to make a good first impression on everyone he met, in the beginning, he _acted_ as if he was fascinated by everything, but a few days later he understood that he actually enjoyed discussing the complicated yet technical aspects of magic with the eccentric man, even if he had no clue of what the man was talking about half the time. So, he grasped what he could from his mostly one-sided conversation with Ollivander and never pushed further. Therefore with his attitude, he made friends with almost all of the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley in no time. Especially with Florean Fortescue, the man was fun to be around, all he needed to do was give a hand and help the man during the busiest period in the shop and he would get free ice cream at the end of the day.

The interesting or more accurately the amusing part of his stay in Diagon Alley was with the process of making friends with the people in the Alley. Even with him being on friendly terms with almost everyone in the Alley none knew that he was 'the Harry Potter'. People usually identified him via the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, which he effectively hid under the black headband and an illusion that concealed his glasses.

Sure, they called him Harry, however, they also thought of him as a muggleborn because of his often curious questions regarding the magical way. It was Professor McGonagall who insisted that he kept his identity hidden in the first place because she wanted him to spend his time in a safe place like the Alley. And so for obvious reasons, she made it clear that he needed to keep his head down and stay disguised at all times. He compared it to being a disguised secret agent of Her Majesty's government and he liked to think of himself like that. And thankfully, due to the prejudices that usually surrounded and blinded the magical folks, it kept his identity safe because people had this belief that the boy-who-lived wouldn't be a muggleborn. Hell, they even went as far to claim that his mum was _most likely_ a pureblood, the exact wordings ranged somewhere around 'she should have been one if she married into the Potter family'.

Minerva also taught him some concealing spells and illusions, which he had to pretend like he was learning it for the first time. In a conversation, pretending to not know a topic or asking a counter question to convince others was easy, but while learning a spell it was difficult, he would have to work against his honed reflexes. But given that he was learning how to cast the spell using his wand, which was indeed new to him, he managed to feign the professor.

And when she did teach him the spell, he questioned her of using magic which could be monitored via 'the trace' and that was something he learned from Florean Fortescue. Instead of worrying she reassured him that using magic in a place like Leaky Cauldron around other magical folks gave him a leeway to bypass the ministry's sensors and also that he wasn't officially a Hogwarts student yet, so the improper use of magic will be overlooked. Then came the problem of using the spell all the time, which was illogical, as he had to expend quite a lot of magic if he were to keep the spell active all the time. Thus, he took to wearing the headband, which may seem overly strange on him, but still, it was very effective in the long run.

He observed, listened and tuned into everything that happened in Diagon Alley, it gave him a better outlook. To pass the time he even created a mind-map of the entire shopping district containing every nook and corner of Horizont Alley, Carkitt Market, and Knockturn Alley. It was very difficult venturing into Knockturn Alley without getting lost or noticed by the wrong sort of people, but he loved a challenge, as such he can now boast that he knew more about Knockturn Alley than his brother, who always seemed like he knew everything.

A little more than a week ago, his bodily senses finally adapted to the very condensed magical atmosphere that veiled over and around Diagon Alley. Come to think of it, it took him a little over a month for his body to adapt and that told him something about his body. Since then, he has been able to sleep better as it gave him a sense of peace, previously, sensing nothing around him made him feel alone, which was something that always set him on the edge.

These summer days that he spent in the magical world were very insightful. During his time wandering around the Alley, he met with Dean Thomas, the Patil twins, Neville Longbottom, Ernie MacMillan, Hannah Abbot, and many others all at separate occasions.

Neville came to Diagon Alley with his grandmother for his birthday, while the others came for the school shopping. He followed the plump boy for quite a while until finally, he introduced himself as 'just Harry'. Nevertheless, he got the feeling that Neville's grandmother knew who he was because she always gave him that _knowing_ look during which her eyes were filled with a tinge of amusement in them. However, his initial curiosity was met with disappointment because Neville Longbottom was nothing like the brave man his brother had portrayed him to be. This Neville lacked self-confidence and the boy's insecurities were almost contagious, but if one were to look closely and see beyond the cover, they would see a warm-hearted boy who had such a capacity for goodness. Still, it didn't impress him _much_.

He also followed Hermione around, when she visited the Alley. Two weeks ago, she came to Diagon Alley with her parents, to purchase her wand. It seemed like she had already bought all the other materials at an earlier time, except for her wand. She was keen, brilliant and curious like him, but also very lonely with loads of insecurities just like how his brother had described her to be. During her time in Flourish and Blotts, he even suggested a book for her, a particularly advanced book on Charms, but he mysteriously disappeared before she and Mrs Granger could acknowledge him for his brilliant selection.

During his time away from 'Privet Drive', he expected Albus Bloody Dumbledore to make an appearance, but to his surprise, the man didn't come to bother him like he or Minerva expected. Professor McGonagall exclaimed that the headmaster was content with him being safe in Leaky Cauldron. His brother, however, had an entirely different theory. His brother simplified that the headmaster was trying to earn his trust, hence that the man wouldn't risk interfering with his happiness for a little more while. When he further pressed his brother for details, his one-eyed counterpart explained to him that for the first few years the headmaster would ensure that he trusted the old wizard and only then would he start interfering with his private life and choices, to further his plans. And besides that, the wards around 'Privet Drive' were active and that they would stay that way for the rest of the year. Initially, he was a bit sceptical of his brother's claim, but then he noticed the Weasley family often visiting the pub. The family didn't come upstairs or intrude into his room, but they spent quite some time downstairs hoping to get a glimpse of him, due to this he avoided them like a plague. He even avoided the Weasley twins, he liked the twins, but he wanted to socialise with them at a private and friendly setting away from the family of redheads. He observed Ronald too and he realised that the boy was everything his brother claimed him to be, lazy and too obnoxious, so to put it in a more polite manner, a swine. It gave confirmation to his brother's theory of headmaster Dumbledore being a well-meaning yet manipulative and deranged moron.

He was shaken out of his musing when he got a glimpse of a bushy brown hair out the corner of his eye. He raised his left hand and rolled his sleeve a little to check the time on his watch, it was fourteen minutes past ten, six minutes since the last time he checked the time. He turned his attention to the family that was walking on the platform along the train seeking a stall. His eyes landed specifically on the bushy brown haired and chocolate brown eyed girl who was all but pulling her parents along with her. It was Hermione Granger, she was wearing a dark violet frock with a pinkish cream colour tops. A rather well-dressed and moderately tall brown-haired man and a shorter brunette haired woman followed the clearly excited girl, who was almost bouncing on her heels.

He waited and watched as the family boarded the train and as soon as they were on board he too boarded the train behind them. He followed behind the brown-haired man who was carrying his daughter's luggage; he was still 'unnoticeable' hence he was able to follow them without arousing suspicion. A few minutes later, the family walked to a stall's open door and inside there was a pair of twin girls sitting silently whispering among themselves and a woman wearing high-priced black robes and a hat was arranging the two trunks on the ledges above the seats.

The dark brown haired, blue-grey eyed twin girls who were wearing matching green robes beheld Hermione with unhidden disdain in their gaze. Hermione, who noticed the twins' look was instantly startled by the brazen display. Just as the woman in the stall identified the Grangers to be muggles, she regarded the dentists with disgust; he exhaled deeply as he walked past the Granger family not wanting to witness the pureblood prejudice that kept the wizarding world from greatness.

* * *

Robert and Olivia Granger were dentists, each specialising in periodontology and prosthodontics respectively, while Olivia had another additional specialisation in dental surgery. They were from Hampstead Village a part of Camden. They had a very successful dental practice in Crawley that was flourishing well into becoming one of the best institutions in all of Greater London.

They had a beautiful daughter, whom they were proud of and had a good social standing in the society. They were very conservative and kind-hearted people having taken the Hippocratic Oath seriously not just as dentists but as citizens. Their benevolent attitude towards the less fortunate people was how they taught their daughter of the world's ways. They always knew that their daughter was unique and as parents, they were always considerate of their child.

But it came as a surprise when their daughter started showing unusual signs and indications that were almost 'magical', incidents that were out of the scope of logic. They were even more astounded when a woman named Minerva McGonagall showed up at their doorstep claiming that their precious daughter was a witch. As such, they weren't wildly keen on sending their daughter to the world that they haven't even heard of and that too for a matter of ten months every year.

Even then, they only agreed to send their daughter to the magical school because their daughter wished for it, but now, they were having second thoughts about the whole affair. They just encountered a mother of twin girls who scrutinised them with hostility for no reason, whatsoever. And most importantly, the girls too were hostile towards their daughter.

Hermione was very upset, even if she refused to express or accept it, it was the truth. She always had a tough time making friends or fitting in, as it were. She initially believed that she would naturally be able to blend into the magical world even if she was new to it. However, her beliefs came as a disappointment when she couldn't communicate with the other children even in the magical world, and now, she was overthinking and distressing over things.

The Granger family walked shortly until they found an empty stall in the next compartment. And they opened the door of the stall and walked in behind their daughter. Robert was about to slide the door and lock it, but the door stopped midway. Robert was briefly startled when he tried to push and close the door forcefully because an unseen force pushed back for a moment until withdrawing and the door closed shut with a click. Suddenly, a raven-haired boy appeared behind the door, he became visible as he dragged his hand downwards.

Robert slid open the door again with surprise etched on his face, meanwhile, Olivia and Hermione remained dumbfounded by the brief exhibition of the mysterious boy. Harry decided to start the conversation as he was the one who intruded into a family moment, "I'm sorry to intrude, but I just want my trunk?"

Olivia immediately looked around and found nothing and she replied with a smile on her face, "Sorry dear, you must be in the wrong stall, this one was empty and we ourselves just walked in..."

"Actually, my trunk _is_ here…" He replied feigning awkwardness and aimed his pointer finger towards the overhead ledge on his left top corner nearby the door. He then swung his left hand over the corner in an arch-like motion and a long trunk appeared out of thin air. His actions further shocked them into wonder and awe.

He had placed the trunk there just minutes before the family entered the stall, by using a clever combination of 'Banishing Charm' and 'Oppugno Jinx' to position his trunk exactly where he wanted it to be, all in order to enter with a reason and start a conversation. It took him a few minutes and a lot of magic to accomplish it, but it was definitely worth it.

He wanted to know what Hermione herself was like to converse with, he did the same thing with Dean, Neville and the others to judge them accordingly. These were the people his brother had vouched for, hence either gaining their friendship or being an acquaintance with them was important to him.

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked with clear excitement in her tone forgetting that she was demanding answers from a stranger.

He casually replied back not making it much of an issue, "Invisibility is one of the safety measures of the trunk. I had it installed for security purposes, you know. I activated it just before I went to the loo."

"And what of the display outside the door…?" Robert asked curiously.

"That's a disillusionment charm; I often use it to keep myself hidden." He swiftly replied having already expected such a question.

"Why would you want to keep yourself hidden?" Robert pressed further from the mysterious boy. He simply grinned cheekily and didn't reply back to the dentists, and they got the message that the boy had no intention of sharing that information with them.

He then stood on his toes and reached up to retrieve his trunk, Robert helped him and when he was about to move out of the door, he was stopped by a voice. Olivia was curious about this boy so she offered, "You're welcome to sit here."

"No, there are loads of empty stalls and furthermore, I wouldn't intrude."

"Oh no, it's perfectly alright. You were seated here before us, anyway." Olivia insisted to the boy because she assumed that the must have been seated in the stall before them.

Olivia stood up and stepped near her husband who hadn't sat yet, she then introduced herself to the young boy, "I'm Olivia…", she then pointed to her husband and said, "…and this is my husband Robert." Then pointed to her daughter, "…and our daughter Hermione."

"I'm Harry…" He shook hands with Robert, who kept a close eye on him.

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" Hermione immediately connected the dots and asked excitedly.

There was a long awkward silence because he didn't reply, instead, he stood there and stared at the bushy brown haired girl peculiarly. "Okay then.., I'll be…right back." He set his trunk vertically on the seat and leant it on the wall and he walked out.

He went to the other side of the platform and there he reached into his bottomless bag and fished out Hedwig's cage. He then whistled shortly in a pitch and a snowy white owl descended down and landed on his right shoulder. He inquired merrily, "How was your flight girl?", and to this Hedwig hooted happily and playfully nipped on the outer pinna of his right ear. He gently opened the cage's door and Hedwig leapt on from his shoulders and into the cage.

He walked back to the stall that Hermione and her parents were occupying and when he opened the door only to find it empty. He surmised that they must have moved to another stall again, but then he noticed Hermione's luggage, a trunk and a backpack, both on the ledge above. Hence, he corrected himself as he realised that the family must have gone out for something else.

He checked the time again, it was half past ten, there was half an hour left for the train to depart. Thus he took his seat on the left side of the stall, close to the window and placed Hedwig's cage beside him, on the cushion. He then looked out through the window and watched closely for a few minutes and noticed something mildly interesting; he noted that the boarding crowd had grown exponentially in the past ten minutes as people seemed to be funnelling in through the barrier every minute.

For the next twenty minutes, he sat there and idly watched the moving crowd outside as he kept lazily twirling his wand between his pointer and middle fingers. As he kept watching the crowd, he saw Robert, Olivia and Hermione walking towards the compartment, they stopped near the doorway and Hermione took her time to hug her parents 'goodbye' and then she climbed on. Within a minute she opened the stall's door and stopped momentarily when she saw him seated there, she then hesitantly walked in and slid close the door.

She slowly sat facing him, he gave her a nod and held his right hand to her and officially introduced himself, "Hi…, I'm Harry Potter."

"Hermione Granger…" She shook his hand and smiled back happily.

Meanwhile, the Granger parents who were standing outside on the platform and viewing the two conversing children through the glass were glad that the boy had come back to sit with their daughter. For the reason that they assumed the boy wouldn't come back until later to pick his trunk after that awkward moment of silence he posed. That's why they took her daughter out at the last moment to get an ice-cream and cheer her up and also to give the boy a chance to retrieve his trunk in peace and not make a scene in front of their daughter, which would have undoubtedly made her upset. They realised that they had misjudged the boy because they noticed the birdcage that was beside the boy inside which there was a beautiful snowy white owl, they understood that was what the boy must have gone to get. Robert wasn't thrilled about his daughter making friends with a mysterious and famous boy, which was something she explained to them just minutes ago. The boy obviously knew the things he needed to know, while Olivia was hoping that her daughter would find her place in the new world.

* * *

 _ **Several hours later-**_

Harry stepped out of the train and onto the platform of Hogsmeade station. He had a splitting headache and he was mentally exhausted, he would have loved for some hot coffee with cream and two sugars.

He and Hermione had spent the entire train ride alone and he was both disenchanted and tired. Their initial conversation tended towards enthusiasm, hence they got along in the beginning, but soon he grew bored. She had a habit of ranting about everything she had read and learned from her books, which she seemed to hold precious more than anything else in the world. Soon their conversation turned out to be one-sided, at which point his judgemental attitude was literally making him think, 'Dear God, why a bookworm?' He got the feeling that she thought of herself as a book ninja of some sort. He was very frustrated because he couldn't buy anything from the trolley due to the assortments' peculiar names and he couldn't meet with the Weasley twins as they promised him. Though, he didn't voice his frustrations to her because he was sure that would've offended her. And so, after she finished with her rant and rave, she calmed down a bit and sported a big contented smile on her face.

Hermione was happy because she had a friend who had the maturity and patience to listen to her thoughts with disputing with her. Her new friend had a genuine interest in studies and was very talented in spells judging from the various spells he cast on their stall's door to keep others from interrupting them. He cast it while standing outside as she was changing into her uniform. She was glad that she found a potential friend on this side of the world.

As they moved forwards they heard, "Firs' years, firs' yeas'…" They both walked towards the crowd of children who all seemed to be in his age group.

At the front, nearby the steam engine, there stood a huge eleven and a half foot tall man with a long beard that almost covered his face stood, the man held a huge lamp in his hand. "Al Firs' years this way, with me…" With that, they were led to the boathouse by the lake in Hogsmeade and there they started boarding the boats, as per Hagrid's instructions.

"No more than four per boat..." Hagrid instructed them and he got on a boat with Hermione, Hannah and Dean. Dean and Hannah didn't recognise him without the headband and furthermore, they were all distracted by the wonders of the Hogwarts castle.

Soon they reached the castle, then they made way into the castle and Hagrid led them to the Entrance Hall, behind the closed doors of the Great Hall. Minerva stood there at the top of the stairs obviously expecting the first years, "The firs' yeas', Professor McGonagall."

Hagrid spoke warmly and looked at the children who were still eyeing him curiously over his size, Minerva who viewed the list on her hand and the children standing before them replied back and relieved the half-giant, "Thank you, Hagrid. I'll take it from here..."

The deputy headmistress then signalled the children to come forward and they walked up the first few stairs and stopped before Minerva. "Welcome to Hogwarts…" Minerva began and paused for a moment to watch the children and then she continued, "The Start-of-term banquet will be beginning shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you must be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because while you're here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts."

"I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House that becomes yours." She then peered across the crowd noting many, indicated by only her eyes that lingered on the people she took note of. Her eyes lingered on him a few seconds longer than that of the others; however, her eyes or expression held nothing but impassiveness in them.

Minerva continued on with the instructions, "The Sorting will take place momentarily in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you're waiting. I shall return when we are ready for you, so please wait quietly." With that, the deputy headmistress walked away leaving them to stand on the stairs for a while.

A few minutes later, Hermione who was standing beside him gasped, "Wow…" along with several others who shouted or panicked.

He followed her line of sight upwards to find two ghosts arguing, "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance…" The Fat Friar spoke loudly.

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves?" Nearly Headless Nick interrupted the other ghost and continued, "He gives us all a bad name, and he's not really even a ghost…" Nearly Headless Nick paused as he noticed them and directed the question at them, "I say, what are you all, doing here?"

"New students…!" The Fat Friar exclaimed as he smiled around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" To this, they all nodded silently.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff! My old House, you know..."

"Move along now…" A sharp voice from Professor McGonagall distracted them and they all tuned into what was happening. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall and into the Great Hall.

"Now, form a line…" Professor McGonagall called out to the first years, "…and follow me."

Harry got into line behind Ernie, with Dean and Ronald behind him while Hermione stood among the other girls in the girls' line, but she was walking beside him as they walked into the Great Hall.

He couldn't help but take in the sight of the enchanted ceiling, stained glass windows and floating candles and the ghosts. His eyes scanned the Staff table as they approached; he noticed the old long-bearded man sitting at the centre of the table wearing violet robes with stars and half-moon patterns embedded on it. It was headmaster Albus Dumbledore; he had received memories about this man from the diary, memories that were given as a warning to him.

Professor McGonagall led them up to the front while forming a line facing the other students, with the Staff table behind them. He glanced up at the enchanted ceiling once more he heard Hermione whisper into his ear from beside him, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History." He smiled being unable to contain it, he for the world couldn't understand Hermione and her utter interest on books.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed the stool in front of them. On top of the stool, she placed the Sorting Hat. The hat was as patched and frayed as if it had been used extensively. The entire hall stared at the stool and for a few seconds, there was utter silence. Then the hat twitched. The rip near the brim opened wide and the hat began to sing, "Oh, you may not think I'm pretty…" After a full three minutes, the whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

He for one was concerned about two things, one, where the hat might sort him and two, and what the hat might see inside his head. Professor McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

Minerva began with the list, "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted."

"Abbott, Hannah!"

Harry watched as Hannah stumbled forward, blond pigtails and all, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down.

"HUFFLEPUFF…" The hat shouted out. The Hufflepuff table cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down. Harry smiled as he saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

Harry watched as the girl named Susan made her way to the stool and Professor McGonagall placed hat onto her head.

"HUFFLEPUFF…" The hat shouted out yet again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

He watched as the boy walked up to the stool again and a few minutes later the hat shouted out.

"RAVENCLAW…" The Ravenclaw table clapped as several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined with them.

Likewise, he kept watching as several others got sorted into different Houses. Justin made it to Hufflepuff, while Seamus, Hermione and Neville were all sorted into Gryffindor. The boy named Malfoy, whose name felt rather familiar from his conversations with his brother, was sorted into Slytherin along with his bodyguards.

And finally, the deputy headmistress called out his name.

"Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall. The last thing he saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inner side of the hat.

" _Interesting…"_ He heard a voice echoing in his mind, it felt foreign, unlike his own thoughts.

There was a long silence for the next minute, then the voice began again, _"It seems like we're existing in an alternate reality than that of the original."_

" _Not exactly, my brother told me that this timeline is just as original as the one he came from, a branch in time that has grown where the original reality was supposed to be!"_

" _Ah, your brother, the time-traveller…"_

He was about to reply back saying that his brother did what he did for the betterment of the world, but before he could reply, the hat spoke again, _"Perhaps, this is a conversation that's best kept for a later time. You'll find your way to me and when you do, we will further speak of this…"_ The Hat gave him a cryptic answer that made him wonder, but it didn't feel like it was the right time to ask questions about it.

" _Now onto the matter of where to sort you…?"_

" _Gryffindor...?"_

" _No, you don't have the necessary traits for me to place you in the House of the Lions."_

" _Why not…?"_

" _To be a lion, one must be brave, chivalrous and courageous, in other words without fear. Whereas you are different, you aren't afraid of the 'unknown', but it doesn't necessarily make you brave."_

" _Hey, I'm brave and courageous. I took the job my brother entrusted me with, and he told me that my duty would be dangerous at times and still, I chose to take it."_

" _You're prepared for the future, my child. You know what lies ahead of you and you've been preparing yourself for it, it makes you confident. Being confident in your abilities is very different to being brave."_ The Hat reasoned to him smoothly.

" _You'll do well in either Slytherin or Ravenclaw."_

" _But, I don't want to be in Slytherin or Ravenclaw."_

" _Want doesn't get, child."_

" _My brother told me that you would take my suggestions into account too."_ He argued back furiously.

And after a few seconds of silence, the hat replied considerately, _"Did he now? Very well, I'll take your opinions into consideration if you give me good enough reasons for not wanting to be in Slytherin or Ravenclaw."_ He couldn't believe his luck; he got the gracious offer of being able to choose the Houses that he didn't want to go to.

" _Well, first of all, I don't want to be in Slytherin because that's the house in which Voldemort was sorted into and my brother often says to me that I'm very much like him, like that murderer. I have to prove him wrong, prove him that I'm not like that mass murderer, Voldemort."_ He strongly began with his explanation.

" _Secondly, studies always came easily to me, but I always get bored after a time when studying extensively. And I don't want to become like Hermione and that's what will happen to me if I'm sorted into Ravenclaw."_

" _Thirdly, I want to be in Gryffindor because, my mum, dad and brother were all in Gryffindor. And I have already managed to make potential friendship with several children in that house, and above that, Professor McGonagall seems to be nice, I'll feel comfortable there."_ He finished his explanation feeling elevated by his own reasoning.

The Hat realised something new, no matter what the boy had gone through, what plans he had for the future and what he had seen, the boy was still a child and not just in physical age, but in mentality. The immaturity of the child was rather very visible, the boy may be mature enough for 'his age', but he was still a child who only made childish decisions. _"Your head seems to be fixed on Gryffindor, but let me make this clear for you. You're choosing to be in the Lion's Den for all the wrong reasons. You'll not fit in the House of Lions."_

" _Why is it so important that I fit in somewhere, can't I be unique and choose wherever I want to be?"_ He asked annoyedly being frightened by the possibility of being placed in Slytherin or somewhere else.

" _Because fitting into a social circle is just as important as everything else, if only one fits into his/her surroundings will he/she grow."_ The hat reasoned to his question.

" _That's untrue, I've lived in a socially dysfunctional family for almost ten years and yet I've grown. You may say that it's because of my brother's interference, but I wouldn't think so... I would say that I always had the potential to be what I am now; my brother may have just influenced it a little."_ He argued back fiercely to the hat, his judgemental nature made him think that the hat was ineffective.

" _If I only do what I'm equipped to do, then I'll never be more than what I am now, now would I? People only grow when they are challenged and I'll be challenged only if I'm somewhere, where I'm unique. I love a challenge if you think that I'm incapable of being a Gryffindor and that only motivates me further. I may not exhibit the traits of being a Gryffindor, but I value them."_ He didn't know what came over him, but in any case, he made it clear that he wanted to be a Gryffindor.

The hat mentally sighed at the boy's choice, _"You have undoubtedly inherited your mother's stubbornness and your father's self-confidence that borders on arrogance and those traits very rarely go hand in hand. Perhaps, you could be a Lion if only a terrible one at that, but if you're sure about your choice then so be it."_

It had been four and a half minutes since Harry Potter tried the hat on, people were murmuring amongst themselves of a Hatstall in motion, but before the five minutes time required for the Hatstall could be achieved, the hat yelled out loud, "GRYFFINDOR…"

He took off the hat and happily skipped towards the Gryffindor table, he took the seat beside Seamus and opposite to Neville. He was so relieved that he was sorted into Gryffindor that he literally ignored the cheers and missed the Weasley twins' repeated yelling which consisted of 'We got Potter'.

He watched the rest of the sorting with a huge grin ever present on his face. He was finally in Hogwarts and he couldn't believe it, for him it felt like a dream, he had been looking forward to this since the day his brother told him about it. And when the sorting was finished, headmaster Albus Dumbledore stood up from his chair and spoke very loudly, "Welcome!"

The man took a brief pause and continued, "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" He for a brief moment wondered what they were about, however, he knew what kind of a man Dumbledore is, and so he didn't bother with the man's eccentrics.

McGonagall then tapped the glass goblet with her spoon three times that created a high-pitched noise that silenced the hall, as everyone stopped talking at once, then Minerva spoke loudly, "Let the feast begin."

With that, the feast began, as the food magically appeared right in front of their very eyes. There were hundreds of plates set on each of the four House tables which were filled with various varieties of foods such as roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, joints, steak and kidney pie, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, mashed potato, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and peppermint humbugs. For dessert, they had blocks of assorted ice cream, apple pies, spotted dick, chocolate gateau, treacle tart, pumpkin tart, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, and rice pudding. He had never seen that much food before in his entire life, they were mouth-watering and he was famished and needless to say, he ate as if his life depended on it, but however, he managed to keep a hold of his fairly good table manners, unlike many others.

During the feast, the ghosts spoke with them and made conversation with his fellow first years. Over dessert, however, the discussion turned towards the students' upbringings. Neville shared the story of how his family thought he was a Squib until he survived a fall from a window. Seamus revealed to them how his father, a Muggle, was shocked when he found out his wife, his mother was a witch.

He noticed the man whom he assumed to be Snape staring at him vindictively, he made sure to ignore the man's gaze in order to make it seem like he hadn't noticed. Since he was silently listening on to the on-going conversations, George caught his attention as he asked, "Not much of a talker are you, Harry?"

"No George, I'm more of a listener." He replied casually.

"You know my name and you can tell me apart from my twin?" George asked with his tone filled with curiosity.

"Yes, I can…"

"How, may we ask?" Fred poked his head into the conversation and asked instead of his brother.

"I would have told you if you both had found me on the train, as you promised."

"WE KNEW IT…" Both Weasleys spoke simultaneously with evident surprise etched on their expressions, "We suspected that it was you…" Fred began and George continued for him, "…we met in Diagon Alley that day."

"Don't worry; you weren't the only ones I fooled. Many of you on this table met me and yet none has recognised me till now." He revealed and everyone looked curiously at him considering what he meant by that statement.

"Who were all those you met?" Seamus asked excitedly.

"As I said, I met many in the Alley. For example, I met you and Neville…"

"No, you did not…" Neville and Seamus spoke simultaneously like the twins.

"Let me enlighten you, you didn't meet Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, no, you met Harry the boy who was wearing an odd headband without his glasses." As he finished, he noticed many sets of eyes widened out of proportions including Hermione's who recognised him as the boy who suggested her, the Charms book. He had a huge grin on his face seeing their shocked and gobsmacked looks, whereas he dispassionately continued on with his dessert.

Before anyone could question him, they were interrupted by the Headmaster. "Ahem…" Headmaster Dumbledore began, "…just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start of term notices to give you."

"Our caretaker Filch has made a list of materials that are banned inside the school grounds. As always the Forbidden Forest is indeed prohibited to all years. And finally, I must tell you that this year; the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds for everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." Dumbledore relayed them so cheerfully that no one suspected anything including him. And then, they all sung the school song and they were dismissed.

* * *

 _ **Gryffindor Tower-**_

Percy Weasley, the fifth year prefect and the third eldest child of the Weasley family led them into the Gryffindor Common room via the Fat Lady's portrait. "Boys' Dormitory is on the left and the girls are on the right, all of your belongings will have already arrived up in your rooms." Percy gave them instructions and pointed towards a single staircase that split into two separate flights of stairs, one diverging to the left and the other separating on to the right.

He was in no hurry to go to sleep just yet; hence he kept himself to the back of the line. As all the first years made way to their respective dorm rooms, he walked into his own room. The dorm room was equipped with a centrally-located stove with five four-poster beds close to the walls while spaced equally to each other, each of the beds was flanked by a set of windows and space for storing personal belongings and on the window sill, a water jug was there.

As he stepped into his dorm room, he saw four boys introducing each other. He walked up to them and he shook hands with them and introduced himself as Harry Potter. He officially familiarised Ronald Weasley, the boy his brother absolutely detested for almost everything bad that happened in the future. His promise of being compassionate to others prevented him from judging this boy unnecessarily, but since he knew that this boy had a reputation for his foolish behaviour, he guessed that pretty soon he will have a good reason to judge, all he needed to do was wait patiently.

Since it was their very first night in Hogwarts; they all unanimously decided to go bed early. They all realised the need to get up early if they were to make it to classes the next day due to obvious reasons.

He closed the curtains around his bed and then he cast a few optical illusions and 'Silencio' spell on the curtains to keep his activities hidden. He muttered, "Lumos…" And the tip of his wand lit itself in a blue light which illuminated his bed and then he retrieved his diary from inside his trunk, took a regular pen and started writing, "I am finally in Hogwarts." The ink soaked into the page and disappeared.

Soon he got a reply, "Brilliant, where did you get sorted?"

"In Gryffindor, of course…" He wrote back to his brother and the letters soaked into the page and disappeared again.

And another reply came almost instantly, "HOW…?"

"I told you that I could be a Gryffindor if I wanted to be."

"But how can that be? You almost have no traits to be sorted into Gryffindor."

"I don't exactly know why the hat agreed to sort me into Gryffindor, but it did tell me that I have mum's extreme stubbornness and dad's self-confidence and that I would make a terrible Lion someday."

"'Agreed…?' Let me guess, you went to a lecture regarding philosophies about life and growth?" Harry could literally feel his brother's eyes rolling in annoyance.

He didn't write a reply because he felt slightly guilty about manipulating the sorting hat using his Occulumency shields and philosophies of life, which was something his brother hated very much. As he didn't write back a reply, he got another response, "I knew it."

"How many times have I told you that deceiving is immoral?"

"I lost count." He wrote back.

"Summon me out…NOW."

"But I thought that was only for when there is an actual necessity." He wrote back being a bit frightened of his brother's impending boring advice.

"NOW…"

He flipped the pages of his diary and went to the last page and placed his palm on it and concentrated as he channelled his magic into the page. Suddenly there was a shimmering of brightness around him and there stood an image of his brother sporting an angry look.

"Before you start berating me, listen to me first. I know that being sorted into the other Houses is not a sin, but I really want to be in Gryffindor. It'll make me feel closer to mum, dad and you. I want to be like you, to be a hero." He reasoned passionately hoping to spare himself an earful.

"I don't want you to be like me, I want you to be better than me, Harry." The thirty-seven-year-old man's consciousness voiced back.

"Do you know what you get for being a hero?" The man asked sternly.

When his younger-self shook his head negatively, he continued, "They will congratulate you for doing something horrible, they will shake your hand, pat you on the back and advice you to go home and get some rest. At the time, it'll make you feel like you have just accomplished something huge, but very soon they will want you back. For the reason that soon enough they will have a new war ready for you and they would want you to fight in it because by then, you aren't a hero anymore, you are a weapon, a very effective weapon that needs to be used every now and then, for their benefit. Why else do you think I stopped coordinating with the ICW and kept fighting against Voldemort on my own?"

The man stopped and sighed for a brief moment and continued, "Scolding or advising you won't change anything because you have a habit of ignoring me when I try counselling you. Instead, I'm going to follow a different approach, you can continue doing what you do best and trust me you'll soon get in trouble because you can't keep your emotions in check at all. But if you do get in trouble you'll have to solve it on your own because I won't help you." And with that, the man disappeared.

The pages of the diary flipped itself to the front and on an empty page some letters appeared, "Now, get to bed." Seeing the note on the empty page, he angrily snapped the diary shut and hastily pushed it into his trunk and went to sleep.

* * *

 _ **Next chapter is up... As requested, I will be accelerating the pace of the story by a bit, so no worries. 'whiteabyss89' the answer to your question is simple. No matter how smart Harry is, he is still an eleven-year-old. Ask yourself this, would a normal eleven-year-old boy question an adult's decisions, an adult who has had subsequent power over many aspects of his life. Any child will be afraid of an adult in his/her life.**_ _ **And people I had updated the story on Inkitt a few days ago, just informing.**_

 _ **And I would like to apologise in advance if anybody expected me to sort Harry in any other houses, I kind of need him closer to the 'rat' among other things, if you know what I mean. And before you ask, I'll explain this, Harry's older self is the only positive relationship he has had in his life. He looks up to his brother figure and admires his traits, traits that have influenced him to choose Gryffindor. And that's why I placed him in Gryffindor, despite his affinity for being a Ravenclaw or Slytherin.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Definite Snape bashing** **… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing…**

* * *

 _ **Library-**_

It was Thursday, the fourth day of the week, four days since Hogwarts had begun. Harry was looking through the various newspaper articles from the archives in the back-end of the Library. He, being his usual curious self, was looking through the old newspapers in search of any articles regarding his parents' death and Voldemort's downfall on that fateful Halloween night ten years ago. He wanted to know how the articles portrayed the incident to be, he did it so to get a general idea of the magical world with respect to its archaic stance.

It hadn't even been full four days in Hogwarts; nevertheless, he had several unnecessary oppositions in his school life. He had noticed a blonde haired boy named Malfoy and his goons in class, to be short; the boy was a bully just like the boy's head of House and resident Master Potioneer Severus Snape. Other than that, he disliked the school's caretaker Argus Filch and his annoying cat, Mrs Norris. And above all was, Peeves, the Poltergeist, he absolutely hated that bloody thing.

Malfoy hasn't conversed with him yet, contrary to the events mentioned in his diary, but for some reason, the boy always reserved a unique condescending gaze just for him. With respect to his observations done from afar, he concluded that the boy was bloated with self-importance and was rather arrogant over his status as a pureblood and the two hefty boys who accompanied the blonde too were like Draco. He understood that trying to correct Malfoy would only further provoke the fool, so he wisely decided not to indulge himself with the silly boy just as he avoided Ronald. He was supremely confident that in due time, the foolish boy would face the consequences of his actions and come to regret it on his own.

Snape hated him for some damn reason that was beyond him, the man tried to humiliate him in their very first Potions class by asking him a question way beyond his scope of intellect. However, he managed to calmly misdirect the Potioneer's unfair question by asking a logical query of his own. Which ranged somewhere along the lines of about how he was supposed to know the answer to a question that was way beyond their current potion-making syllabus. As the Potioneer's initial attempt at provoking him failed, the hook-nosed idiot actually sought to probe his mind via Legilimency, if only a passive attack. Though, he succeeded in defending his mind against the Potioneer's passive Legilimency if only by the skin of his teeth. And then the dungeon bat's frustrated pacing following his failed attempts at humiliating 'Potter' was very satisfying to watch. The man made a fool out of himself with his failure. As such, he ended up losing thirty house points and earned himself a detention, apparently 'for disturbing the class.' His only comfort to this was that he managed to make his point clear, and his point being that he wasn't going to let anyone walk over him.

Filch was a sadist. The old coot may be harmless, but for that very same reason, he took pleasure in hurting, frightening and making the students feel pained. 'Peeves' on the other hand, was the bloody thing he hated the most in the entire castle. It was a nightmare, not only did it make his life miserable, furthermore, whatever he does to counter it with spells, had no whatsoever effect on the poltergeist.

Whereas the subjects were fun, History of Magic and DADA were a joke, Transfiguration, Potions and Charms were fascinating and Herbology was rather very tiring. He found the ghostly history professor's droning tone to be very soothing and he would fall asleep faster than he could even think the definition of the word 'History'. And Professor Quirrell was afraid of his own shadow, the man's defence classes were anything but 'defensive'.

He also had some trouble casting spells with his wand, it was faster and easier when compared to doing them wandlessly, but since he had good reflexes and muscle memory casting spells without a wand, it was difficult to work against those honed reflexes. Wandless magic in a magically active environment was much more difficult to perform than when working in a magically inactive surrounding. If magic is to be compared to oil, wandless magic is like pouring the said oil into a small container with only the use of his bare hands, whereas a wand acts like a measuring jar attached to a funnel which makes everything a lot easier.

He remembered his brother's explanation about the art of potion-making a few years ago. He was told that making a potion was like preparing a soup. At the time, he didn't give it much thought, but now, it strangely made perfect sense; he had enough experience with cooking to flawlessly go through the preparation process. He got fair results with his existing cutting and cleaning techniques, the only thing he lacked was precision due to the absence of practice and experience, which he was sure that he would acquire in time. He rarely did things out of intuition, a side effect of his observant nature. However, on this topic, his intuition told him that if he kept practising at making potions, then in time, he would be very well at it. What he didn't realise was that Voldemort's extensive knowledge and awareness regarding the art of potion-making has partially leached into his mind making him _seem_ skilled in potions.

Yesterday, after the Charms class he asked the half-goblin Charms expert, Professor Flitwick about his parents, especially about his mum. And the man graciously invited him into his office for a cup of tea and told him many things about his mother and some things which he knew about his father and some playful incidents about his parents that happened in their final year in Hogwarts. His brother previously had also mentioned several such incidents during their conversations. These were all that inspired him to further study about his parents, and specifically on the names, the duelling champion had mentioned during their conversation.

Speaking of his brother, their current discussions or to be more precise debates, were relatively short and concise, but the regular diary entries that appeared were rather very detailed. He has had arguments with his brother before, usually, his older-self would stay silent for a while and then everything would become normal again. He strongly believed that his older-self would forgive him, deep down he knew he had nothing to worry about when it came to his brother.

As such, he was researching through the old newspapers for anything useful. Suddenly out of nowhere someone almost slammed a stack of books on the table successfully startling him.

In the meantime, one Hermione Granger was agitated by her only friend's actions and was concerned about his reaction in their potions class, this morning. After the class, she searched for him in the common room, great hall and even in his dorm room much to his roommates' protest and when she couldn't find him anywhere else, she decided that she would wait for him to reveal himself. Hence she made her way to the Library to read up on the topics for the next week's class and to her surprise she found him sitting in a secluded corner reading through grubby old newspapers.

She first went to collect some books and when she was satisfied by her collection, she made way to her friend and almost slammed the book on the table nonetheless startling him; he exhaled out sharply as he spoke breathlessly, "Good God, you gave me a fright."

"What were you thinking antagonising Professor Snape like that? You caused us…" Hermione began ranting as he tuned her out and glanced at the newspaper lying on the table and he started reading out of the corner of his eye.

"Harry, are you listening?" Hermione caught his attention yet again and stared at him intently.

"Wait, what?" Needless to say, his words caused Hermione to narrow her eyes at him. He was already uncomfortable with the events that happened in their recent potions class and atop that, he didn't need Hermione raging upon him too.

Hermione always sat close to him during classes and desperately clung to his friendship. She did this because she didn't want to lose the only person she had managed to connect with, it wasn't exactly a secret that she had difficulties relating with her roommates in the Gryffindor tower. Harry, on the other hand, was tired of her constant presence around him all the time, since for the last four days she has stuck to him like glue. He couldn't for the world, understand why a keen individual like his brother would have needed a friend like Hermione. She was keen and talented, there was no denying it, but so was his brother. Then again, since his brother had insisted that he cultivated a strong friendship with Hermione, he had chosen to follow along with his brother's wisdom.

"Harry, why did you have to antagonise Professor Snape?" Hermione almost whined, but she managed to keep her expressions civil.

"I antagonised him? For heaven's sake, you were in the same classroom, weren't you? In case you didn't notice, he was the one who antagonised me." He mockingly replied and also rather loudly.

"Harry…" Hermione was about to start again with her rant and rave, but he interrupted her before she could begin.

"Hermione, listen to me first and don't interrupt..."

"Firstly, Snape is a professor, in case it isn't clear, he is the one who is supposed to be professional at his job, not me. Secondly, regarding the question, he asked me, but before I go into it, I would like to explain something to you. On our very first day in school, the twins advised me that I should read at least a couple of chapters ahead before entering Snape's class. Taking the advice to heart, I did as per the twins' advice, however, instead of reading a few chapters ahead, I finished the entire course book just within three days' time and then I went to class hoping that it would be enough not to fall behind." He stopped briefly as he fished out his potions textbook from his bag and threw it on the table just above Hermione's stack of books, and he continued while he kept pointing to the potions textbook, "But Snape, as soon as he entered the class, he asked me a question that no first-year student _who has only referred through the official course book_ could have possibly answered. The answer to his question is the 'Draught of the Living Death', which is in the sixth year syllabus, ways ahead for us don't you think, and before you begin arguing that it's impossible, just trust me because I checked and rechecked, not once or twice, but _thrice_. I inquired to the upper years except for the Slytherins and they bluntly told me that the man is a bully who has had his way with everything for the last ten years or so, that's why he thinks he can act like a despicable bat without facing any consequences whatsoever."

"Harry, first of all, it's Professor Snape, give him the respect he deserves if not for the man at least for his title. I asked our prefect Percy Weasley about Professor Snape and he told me that Professor Snape is a very gifted Potioneer and that he sets the bar a little too high for his students, he also mentioned that it isn't anything for us to worry about if we work hard enough." Hermione calmly reasoned back, trusting the authority figures to be the perfect human beings who are incapable of causing blunders.

"Hermione let me ask you this. What would have happened if Snape had worked in a primary school in _our_ world? Do you think that the PTA would have let Snape work there with such an incompetent and careless attitude towards children? Your parents are paying for this and so is my parents' money, is it too much to ask for quality unbiased education?" He countered back logically, and since Hermione prized logic it was difficult for her to fight against her own principles.

"You can't compare this world to ours, you know that, Harry." Hermione retorted trying to give some form of defence.

"Are you telling me that he is being professional at his job to the magical world's standards? He almost made Neville cry in class today and if what I heard is true then he made two first year girls from Hufflepuff cry too. He is a man in his thirties and yet he verbally abuses and bullies children less than half his age, semantics or not, that makes him despicable. Being a talented Potioneer doesn't mean that he can teach the subject, teaching requires both passion and skill. I know that it's only been four days and that we have only attended these classes once, but I can tell you this, Binns, Quirrell and Snape are jokes when it comes to teaching, which means three out of seven subjects are a complete waste of time and out of those three, two of them are very important subjects. What does that tell you about Hogwarts' standard of teaching, Hermione?" He asked her sternly.

When she couldn't account back with a reply, he sighed as he muttered, "I thought not…", and continued reading the newspapers.

Hermione was torn, she couldn't disregard what her only friend just described, but she also didn't want to mistrust the teachers. Her parents and teachers were the only sources of comfort during her difficult times in primary school. Harry was very judgemental in nature, she could understand that. She realised that he is used to judging people indifferently, sometimes even heartlessly, but her experiences told her otherwise, she believed that their teachers, no matter how unprofessional they are, they would help them in the time of need.

With that, she felt as if there was nothing for them to talk about, hence she sat facing him and began reading the books she had selected earlier, as they both fell into an awkward silence, eventually the awkwardness faded away as they silently did their respective work for the next few hours. While they did their work, she kept wondering over what Harry had elucidated to her and no matter the logic his reasoning supported, her heart told her to put her trust in the teachers and she decided to follow it.

* * *

 _ **Flying Lessons-**_

One week has passed since his incident with Snape in their first potions class. He wanted to report to his head of House about Snape's unprofessional and ineffective method of teaching, but he was worried that it would make him a target; hence he kept quiet much to Hermione's satisfaction.

Finally, the much awaited flying lessons came, since they learned about brooms and about flying in their last class. This was their first practical class and needless to say, he was really excited, the only snag being that they were paired up with the Slytherins. Almost all of the Slytherins acted like insufferable arrogant idiots, which was one of the attitudes that he didn't endorse due to its inefficacy regarding social communication. He was curious to know what it would be like to fly, according to his brother; he would most likely have an inborn affinity for it.

Madam Hooch stood before them and portrayed a strict look on her face. She had spiky grey hair which was cut short and had piercing, yellow, hawk-like eyes, which were partially hidden behind her goggles. She wore a white button-down collared shirt and black necktie with the Hogwarts crest, under a cloak, with quality Quidditch equipment strapped to her legs, hands and body for safety purposes.

"Okay, in this class you will be learning how to fly a broom." Madam Hooch announced loudly and sternly.

They all stood in two rows with each facing others while the brooms were placed on the ground in front of them, one for each one of them. "Everyone stand on the left side of the broom and stretch your right hand over it and say 'up'." Madam Hooch announced the instructions.

"UP…" He loudly shouted out to the broom lying on the ground, his voice was drowned amongst the screams of the many others. His broom was one of the only brooms that flew into his hand at his very first command. His broom's reaction to his command earned him surprised looks from many other who stood beside him; Hermione too viewed him out the corner of her eyes, who apparently kept an eye on him even when standing at the end of the row. He himself was surprised, but he wasn't as surprised as the others because his brother had explained to him about their natural affinity for flying. Meanwhile, Hermione kept trying to summon her broom up, but it didn't levitate instead it kept rolling on the ground on her command.

And finally, when everyone managed to summon their brooms, Madam Hooch continued with her instructions, "Now I want all of you to mount up on your respective brooms and slowly levitate a foot from the ground and then lean forward and slowly touchdown."

They all mounted their brooms, but before Madam Hooch could instruct them on how to take off, Neville, unfortunately, kicked on the ground due to his nervousness. His broom immediately took off and it kept climbing higher, it flew out of control and after quite a spectacle the broom eventually crashed into the school's wall. He tensed slightly as Neville let go of his broom and fell down from his broom. As Neville was falling, he quickly drew the tip of his wand and held it within his palm and he silently muttered, "Molliare…" Subsequently, a cushioning charm was cast on the ground below. And there was a loud thump as Neville hit the cushioned ground, he looked disoriented but overall he seemed just fine. He already knew about the event of Neville losing control of his broom from the most recent entry in the diary, he was told to expect such an incident, as such; he came prepared for the worst case scenario.

Madam Hooch ran towards Neville who was lying on the ground and whispered, "Oh, dear…"

Neville shook his head a few times being slightly dazed due to the lingering adrenaline in his system. With that, she gently helped Neville up to his feet. She checked him up and down a few times to make sure of any injury she might have missed since he just fell down from a height of thirty feet. And then she guided him into the castle, towards the infirmary, just in case there were any internal injuries that they may be unaware of.

But before they entered the castle, Madam Hooch turned around and said sternly, "Keep your legs firmly on the ground, if I see one broom in the air you will be on the train back home before you can say Quidditch." Madam Hooch warned before taking Neville to the infirmary.

As Madam Hooch disappeared into the castle along with Neville, they all regrouped. His housemates kept a fair distance from the Slytherins even if they were all standing together. Whereas he levitated his broom a few feet above the ground and used it as a makeshift bench as he sat one-sided on it. He stuck to the back of the group, not wanting to attract any attention to himself, Hermione who stood beside him, kept giving him interested glances at his seating arrangement.

All of a sudden his attention wavered; he heard familiar voices of Dean, Ronald and Malfoy in higher intensities than usual. He craned his neck and peered across the crowd from his seat only to find Ronald, Dean, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle arguing over something. Malfoy had taken Neville's remembrall and had made some snide remarks at Neville's nervous nature. Dean and Ron being rather close to Neville, they immediately defended Neville, as such, soon an argument commenced.

He slowly stepped down from his seat on the levitating broom and gave Hermione a querying look accompanied with a loose shrug of his shoulders; she wordlessly followed behind towards the heart of the crowd being curious herself. He navigated between the people and walked towards Dean and Ronald. He arrived just in time to see Dean walking forward to Malfoy intent on thumping him; he reached out to Dean's left shoulder and grasped it tightly to stop him from moving forward. Dean swung his head and beheld Harry's stern gaze annoyedly, while he slowly shook his head sideways wordlessly advising his roommate to stop the altercation at once. His message was explicit in his gaze, naturally, Dean calmed down a little at his gesture.

Malfoy seeing that his attempt at provoking the Gryffindors was failing, he further ramped up his efforts, "Good boy, listen to Pott-head and run home to mummy…" Malfoy finished and laughed loudly along with the rest of the Slytherins.

Meanwhile, he lethargically turned to meet Draco's eyes sporting an empty smile that dripped with sarcasm. He took a step forward and connected with Draco's tottering gaze, however, he, in turn, held his stare rather sternly, his face may sport an empty playfulness but his eyes were furious. He kept quiet for a few seconds and continued with the decline of the Slytherins' laughter and he snidely replied back in an almost softer tone, "Perhaps it's time for you to call out for your daddy and piss off."

His counter caused Slytherins' laughter to die altogether in an immediate fashion. With that, he turned Dean around forcefully with the tight grip on the tall boy's shoulder and the rest of his housemates followed his example and further distanced themselves from the Slytherins to avoid any such incidents.

"Mate, why didn't you demand Neville's remembrall back from Malfoy?" Ronald loudly complained into his ears.

He ignored Ron's question and kept walking with Dean until the dark-skinned boy shook off his grip on the shoulder and stood his ground agreeing with Ron on the matter. Dean was exceedingly irritated by Malfoy's comments because the blonde badmouthed one of his friends and roommate Neville and also stole Neville's remembrall. He agreed with Ronald on the matter of Harry not standing up to Malfoy. Harry was their roommate and friend, and friends were supposed to look out for each other weren't they, he wondered to himself.

"Ron is right, Harry. Malfoy shouldn't get away with this…" Dean claimed along with the support of others.

He stared at his classmates for a few minutes and then he pointed his pointer finger towards Malfoy and began, "Malfoy is right there, if you want to pick a fight with him, you be my guest, see if I care."

He then reached into the inner pocket of his uniform jacket and he took a large marble-sized glass ball and tossed it to Dean who caught it easily, then he continued, "Maybe you can hand that over to him too; I bet he'll be relieved to find that Neville's remembrall isn't lost."

The viewing crowd and even some of the smarter Slytherins who kept a watch on the Gryffindors were stunned to find Neville's very 'remembrall' Draco had previously stuffed inside his pocket was seen in Harry's hand of all places. They all simultaneously looked at Draco and then at him in obvious surprise. Only one question ran inside every single one's minds, how Harry Potter got the 'remembrall' from Draco's pocket without anyone noticing it or more importantly without even approaching Malfoy in the first place.

Seamus who quickly recovered from the apparently surprising sight of Harry pulling out Neville's remembrall from inside his uniform, he hurried behind Harry and asked, "How did you do that?"

"If used properly, sleight of hand can be a very useful tool." He replied monotonously.

"That means you stole it, but you never went anywhere close enough to Malfoy, to do it…" Seamus asked being excited.

He turned his head to look at Seamus only to find several of his Gryffindor housemates including Hermione following close behind them both. He shook his head slightly and replied cryptically, "You see the world only through your eyes, and that makes it relatively easy for me to fool you."

Before anyone could ask him what he meant by that, Madam Hooch returned to the pitch without Neville and the class resumed again. He was grateful that the class continued because frankly, he was getting tired of people gawking at him constantly.

* * *

 _ **Gryffindor Tower-**_

It was half past nine, they were all supposed to be in bed, but however, they all began a game of exploding snaps at Seamus's insistence. Neville had returned to the dorm sometime around six o'clock being discharged from the infirmary after many tests to make sure that he was alright. As they began arranging their cards, Seamus asked being unable to contain his curiosity any longer, "Harry, can I ask you a question?"

"Mhmm-mmm…"

Seamus began excitedly, "How did you steal the remembrall from Malfoy's pocket?"

"Simple, I cast an illusion and then summoned the remembrall from inside Malfoy's pocket coupled with a 'confundus charm' on him to keep things subtle." He replied casually not even bothering to taking his eyes off of his cards.

"When did you do it?" Seamus pressed for more details.

"During the many seconds when they were laughing, just before I insulted Malfoy for his comment on Dean and me..."

"How do you even know how to do that?" Dean asked bewildered by his casual tone.

"What do you think I do when I visit the library?"

"Still, spells aren't something that can be learned by simply reading through a book or two." Dean countered back being astonished by his lack of seriousness on the matter.

"Well, it isn't for everyone." His distracted reply finally made it clear that he didn't really care about his extraordinary abilities. They all played for the next hour or so and finally went to bed. He closed the curtains around his bed and he took his diary from inside his trunk and secured himself with ward spells around his bed to ensure that his privacy is maintained.

He began writing on the page, "Hey bruv…?"

The letters soaked into the page and disappeared, soon the reply came, "What is it this time?"

"Why does it have to be anything? Can't I speak with you like a regular brother?"

"You do know that you haven't contacted me in five days." The reply was short and implying.

"Okay, I have a problem…" He wrote back hastily.

The letters disappeared and soon an answer reappeared in its place, "Tell me all about it."

"It's Hermione…"

"What about her?"

He took a deep breath and wrote, "It's been two weeks and she hasn't detached from me, not once. She follows wherever I go and in class, she pairs up with me for everything, without even concerning my opinion and above all she rants endlessly of all the things that go about inside her overdeveloped brain. Today in potions class, she constantly kept correcting my cutting techniques and it was a miracle that I didn't snap back at her. And apart from all that, she abides by all the rules no matter how stupid they are. "

The reply came delayed, "I feel sorry for you, Harry." He could literally feel his brother laughing hilariously.

"I'm serious, bruv."

"Let me ask you something…, from the things you just told me about Hermione, what can you tell me about her overall behaviour or what you can interpret from it, in one word?"

"Possessive." He wrote back hurriedly.

"Try again."

"Controlling?"

"Again..."

"Just give me the bloody answer, will you." He wrote back not being in a mood to play around.

"Try…again."

"I don't know…" He stopped writing for a moment and continued again with a reply, "…she tries to help me with everything as if I need her help in the first place. She keeps escorting me everywhere and she looks at me as if she needs my approval on…" He paused as he realised what he was about to write and he continued, "…everything…" He stopped as he understood what he meant by his writing.

"She's trying to impress me, isn't she?" He wrote back after a brief interlude.

The question soaked in and disappeared like all the other questions and an answer appeared shortly, "For a boy who prizes on his ability to pick up on most emotions easily, it sure took you a long time." As the reply came, he felt the mirth behind the words.

"If all she's doing is to try and impress me, then what should I do, to…, you know…, to ease her?"

"Did you befriend her?" The next set of letters appeared shortly.

"Of course I did..., what kind of question is that?" He wrote back being confused about what his brother meant.

"I mean did you tell her that she's your friend? Did you officialise it literally?"

"No." He immediately wrote back and then a moment later he added, "Is that even necessary? I socialise with her on a daily basis, it kind of means that she is my friend."

The reply was a wee bit delayed than usual, "And that's where you're wrong. In Hermione's case, you'll have to declare it face to face, or else she will continue to live in a shell of self-doubt until then."

"So in short, I have to speak to Hermione and clear it up for her that we are indeed friends. Are you sure, bruv?" He wrote back being a little doubtful of his brother's hypothesis.

"Positive."

"Did you do this yourself?" He wrote back as his mind was clouded with reasonable doubt.

"I didn't need to. Me, Ron and Hermione, we bonded over an incident, a life-threatening incident to be precise. It gave way for a foundation for my trust in her and for her trust in me; given that, I didn't need any face to face declarations to make our friendship official."

"You mean the troll incident?" He wrote in the diary to clarify the details.

"Yes…"

"And just out of curiosity, how exactly do you expect me to bring up the topic to her in a conversation, without offending her by stating the reality of the situation, which would mean that we weren't friends yet?" He wrote back while scrunching his face in frustration.

"I'm sure you'll find a way."

He felt like he was being tested by his brother purely for the sake of amusement, he narrowed his eyes at the wordings and he hastily penned a question, "Are you going to help me or not?"

"What is the point of me sacrificing my life and coming back in time to give you 'wisdom' and 'talent', if you aren't going to think and use any of it. I can't help you with every single thing, Harry. You'll have to think of a solution of your own. I'm here to guide you, to help you when you ' _need'_ it, not to dictate your every move and essentially micromanage your life…"

"That being said, I can tell you this, trust is a mutual circumstance, it has to be reciprocated from both the ends or else the entire relationship would fall apart. If you want her to let her guard down and be flexible enough for accepting your views and ideas, then you will have to do the same, let your guard down around her and accept her views first, keep this in mind when you get to work."

As he finished reading his brother's advice, he had an interesting idea that would make things easier for him, he happily penned an answer, "Thank you, I just had an idea on how to go about it without offending Hermione."

"Glad to be of help…" He was fairly positive that his brother was being sarcastic considering his brother's exact wordings.

The reply disappeared and another question followed, "Is there any more questions you want to ask?"

"No, not really, just this…" He wrote back a little hesitantly while scouring through his thoughts for anything else that he might have forgotten to ask.

"Well then, get to bed, it's getting late. Good night." The next set of letters appeared in an advising format and he immediately wrote back a 'good night' and snapped shut the diary and stuffed it into his trunk and went to sleep.

* * *

 _ **Second Saturday-**_

It was a dull Saturday morning; most of the inhabitants of the castle were still fast asleep including his roommates. He walked down the grand staircase towards the great hall for breakfast. And as soon as he walked into the great hall, his eyes landed on the bushy brown haired girl who was simultaneously eating her breakfast and reading some book.

He walked over and sat beside her, he then greeted cheerily, "Good morning."

"Good morning." She happily greeted back.

He began his breakfast and they both conversed for a while about random things. He was waiting for the right moment, to begin with, his attempt at confirming their friendship for both their sakes.

For her, Harry was both mysterious and an enigmatic topic; she had watched him closely since the incident in their flying class. Watching him had only made her more confused, she realised that he wasn't a kleptomaniac as she first suspected, but still, he somehow seemed skilled with calculated deception. He liked deceiving others however he strictly had his emotions under control. He was naturally antisocial and very shy at heart, but he effectively disguised it by working very hard in social situations making him seemed like he was very friendly and outgoing.

Their conversation continued and just when Hermione finished with her opinion on the magazine called 'Transfiguration Today', he commented, "Remind me to subscribe to the journal."

"Actually, I was about to subscribe myself, would you like it if I subscribed it in your name too?" She asked him expectantly with her lips tugging on a huge smile.

Frankly, his last comment was without motive, he didn't exactly fancy spending his time reading Transfiguration magazines. But one look at Hermione's expression told him that he had no choice but to agree, if he wanted to keep the conversation going, hence he replied while feigning his enthusiasm, "Sure, that's a great idea."

"I'll have it done by today. Do you mind if I use Hedwig for delivering the subscription letters?"

"No, not at all, not at all…" He replied sounding distracted.

He took a deep breath and spoke casually, "Hermione, can I trouble you with a favour?"

Hermione nodded unsurely at his request and gave him a curious look signalling for him to continue, and he continued, "I need your help with something."

Hermione being interested in his specific tone asked, "With what…?"

"It'll be easier to show you rather than explaining it." He dispassionately responded to her interest.

"Show me what?" Hermione was now even more absorbed at the intended path of the situation.

He stood up from his seat and signalled her to follow him and she did so without hesitation. They walked out of the great hall and proceeded towards the grand staircase and headed to the sixth floor of the castle. They kept to the right side corridor from the staircase and finally reached the large portrait of the 12th-century French poet, Percival Pratt. There was a similar portrait on the fourth-floor corridor, but this one held his interest because the secret pathway behind this one was more exciting than the one behind the counterpart portrait in the fourth-floor corridor.

"What are we doing here, Harry?" Hermione was interested, but she didn't like wasting her time.

"Shhhh…" He made the noise and held his pointer finger to his lips indicating her to keep her quiet.

He then placed his left hand on the wall to the left of the portrait. He traced his palm along the wall from the top to the bottom in a downward motion and finally he found the brick he was searching for, it was the one parallel to the poet's left knee in the portrait. He tightly gripped the brick's edges with his sharp nails and pulled it out with all his strength. The brick seemed to be pushed outwards to a length of three inches and when it stopped, there was a clicking noise. He then hurriedly gripped the right side of the portrait and opened it like a door. Behind the portrait was a stone archway about six feet in height and three feet wide.

He walked inside and Hermione followed behind him being fascinated by the revelation, but not five metres inside, the pathway, unfortunately, ended because it seemed to be caved in, blocking the way.

The portrait door closed behind them and she heard a whisper, "Lumos." Subsequently, there was a bright blue light that illuminated the dark passageway; he moved the tip of his wand toward the rocks that blocked the way and with that he began, "This is what I wanted to show you, Hermione."

"Why, Harry?" Hermione was excited, but she was unable to find a motive for Harry showing this to her.

"I need your help clearing the rocks and to find where this leads to. And when we do find out, I want to enchant this passageway in a way that anyone else who finds it after will find it blocked by rocks. This is not something I can do alone if so, I wouldn't have bothered you." He explained to her carefully.

Hermione was once again torn between friendship and her ideals; it was clear to her that Harry didn't intend on revealing it anyone else especially the professors. At the same time, it also meant that he intended to use this passageway at a later time and she was fairly sure that it meant breaking the school rules and that alarmed her. However, it also meant that Harry trusted her with this secret and she didn't want to offend her only friend by betraying him. To her, this was also a confirmation of sorts; Harry's trust validated her theory of friendship and cleared all of her self-doubts.

With that, they exited the passageway and thoroughly secured the entrance. Once it was done, they both were on their way back; he hesitantly asked her, "Will you help me?"

To put a cherry on top, he added, "If you help me with this, I'll owe you. You can ask me for anything and if it is within the reach of my abilities then I'll do it."

She had already decided to help him, but since he offered her, she confidently asked, "Harry, if you let me use Hedwig to deliver letters to my parents, I'll be very grateful. That last school owl I sent home bit my dad's fingers, and he wasn't impressed by the owl mail in the first place either."

"Of course, actually, Hedwig will be relieved to leave Hogwarts for a nice flight every now and then, you see I have no one that I would want to send my letters to, so you might as well use Hedwig..." He replied casually not realising what he just slipped up. Hermione meanwhile felt sad as she understood that her friend was more than what his façade portrayed him to be. She also pondered deeply about his rather crude statement, she was aware that he lived with his relatives and it made her wonder what he meant by the statement.

"So, friends…?" He asked with a wide grin as he held his hand up to her.

"F-f-friends…?" She stuttered briefly, wondering if what she heard was true. Then she cracked a smile and warmly shook his hands and replied, "Friends."

With that, they both chatted as they happily made their way to the library.

* * *

 _ **I'm wrapping the chapter here. I apologise for the wait and also for the short chapter, but considering that this is just a filler chapter, I'm a little disappointed with myself because of how the chapter turned out to be. I promise you that the next chapter would be more important and interesting.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, a misguided author called JKR does...**

 **Warnings: An alternate universe which will closely resemble the canon… Mildly Dark beginning… Minor to 'maybe major' bashing of Dumbledore and Weasleys… Definite Snape bashing… Unique yet Grey Harry Potter and it will definitely be an eventual Harry/Hermione pairing…**

* * *

 _ **The Library-**_

 _Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The Vault 713 that was searched had in fact been emptied days before the burglary._

" _But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you…" Said the Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon!_

 _Gringotts now needs to readdress their security system. Goblin security specialists are combing the land for a better breed of security dragon to replace the now deemed useless existing ones. They are even going as far as examining muggle security systems. Gringotts need to get another security system in place before any more breaches occur. Wizards, Witches all over the country are scratching their heads wondering how safe their money is in the so-called safest wizard bank. Head Goblins are urging the wizarding community for calm._

His eyes lingered on the newspaper article that he had stumbled upon just moments ago. Madam Pince had come by the archives to dust the place and then arrange the latest collection of newspapers in the archives. Since she did her work manually, it took her quite some time to finish and leave, all the while she kept glaring at him for the unkempt table with various stacks of newspaper scattered atop it.

As soon as she left, something had pulled his attention to the latest stack of newspapers she had just arranged. And that's where he found the newspaper with the article that detailed over the break-in at Gringotts. Since he had just read through the article three consecutive times, he felt more intrigued than ever. For the reason that the Gringotts vault in the aforementioned article was the exact same vault, he had visited with McGonagall before school. On that day, the transfiguration professor had taken the only thing present in the vault, a small dirty bundle.

Two weeks ago, there was an entry in the diary that had made no sense to him at the time. The diary entry too mentioned about the newspaper article detailing the burglary of vault 713. He was more than a little overwhelmed by Hogwarts's strange classes and adjusting to the impending routine to actually verify the incident mentioned in the entry, but now, as he had read through everything, it made sense. By logic, his mind told him that this simply could not be a coincidence and he knew for sure that it wouldn't be one if his brother had mentioned it in the entry.

Several questions began swirling through his mind. Questions like, if the bundled item McGonagall retrieved from Vault 713 was the philosopher's stone, the same ominous stone his brother had fleetingly mentioned after quite a bit of warning. And if it was the philosopher's stone, then why would McGonagall withdraw it from the relative 'safety' of Gringotts. And more importantly, how did the headmaster know that there would be a burglary in the bank, in the first place, and that the so-called safety of the bank would be compromised. And why exactly didn't the man simply warn the Goblins if he knew of the plot beforehand?

He needed an outside opinion. And there came the problem, he knew that asking the most likely candidate for details was pretty much a useless notion. He was positive that his older-self would simply laugh at him, and then he would give him even more confusing and cryptic answers that would most likely raise more questions than it would answer, all the while urging him to figure things out on his own. Instead, he would rather ask Hermione or Dean maybe even Neville for their opinions on the matter and work out the mystery on his own. He stopped all of a sudden because he just had an epiphany, which also gave him an idea; he immediately took the newspaper with him and hurried out of the Library.

* * *

 _ **Sixth Floor-**_

He searched for her in the Common Room, Great Hall, by the Lake, and he finally found her in the sixth-floor corridor, inside the secret pathway right behind the portrait that he had introduced her to, in order to confirm their friendship.

He closed the portrait door behind him only to find the pathway bright and well lit by ember of flames floating in small glass bottles. The bushy-haired girl that he had made his acquaintance with, after long internal discussions, was measuring the pathway's length and breadth using a measuring tape. He briefly wondered how she got a measuring tape, but he put that thought to rest almost instantly when he noticed something oddly different about the pathway. The pile of rocks rubbled on, as the cave-in at the end of the pathway seemed to have lessened because the pathway appeared to descend down like a stairway as he could see two steps right before the rest of the rocks.

He asked curiously, as to why she was measuring the dimensions of the passageway, while he walked towards the rubble in order to confirm the reduced number of rocks rather than just assuming it to be the case, "What have you been doing in here, Hermione?" While completely forgetting why he came to find her in the first place.

"I'm measuring the exact dimensions of the pathway." She replied to him excitedly in an obvious tone, while missing the intent of his question.

"I can see that. My question is…, 'why'?" He clarified his intent to her.

She quoted from one of her favourite books, "You wanted to enchant this passage and for that, I need to find the necessary amount of Magic required for producing and maintaining such an enchantment, for my calculations. And I quote, 'the amount of magic required for maintaining a series of enchantments is directly proportional to the area the enchantments have to encompass over'."

"Conventional Laws of Enchantments and Bewitchments…" He gave the name of the book which she quoted from, as he was impressed by her retention. He replied distractedly since he was once again interested in the reduced number of rocks in the cave-in, as he couldn't come to a logical deduction about it, on his own.

Hermione was surprised when he gave the name of one of her favourite books, and so she asked excitedly, "Have you read that book?"

Again he replied sounding distracted, "Like you, I too scour through books, Hermione. Just not in front of a lot of witnesses, that's all."

"Why do you not read books in front of others?" She asked not seeing the logic in having to hide such a useful habit.

"Because I don't want to be known as a bookworm…" This time, however, he turned to face her as he answered her question.

"What's wrong with being a bookworm?" She asked almost uncertainly, as she felt a little offended by his statement.

"Nothing, really… It's just that, I'm fascinated by 'the Art of Deception', you know, portraying the obvious, but with something else, something different…underneath. If I've learned anything, it's that, appearances are always deceptive. And if I want to succeed in such an art then I'll have to keep my appearance balanced. I love reading books and that is a habit that I wouldn't want others to perceive me as when generally referring to me, I want to seem knowledgeable to others, but at the same time, I don't want to overstate my intellect in any way. You know to seem wicked. Trust me it won't help your image in a social setting if everyone knows about all of your habits." He answered back sporting a disarming smile seeing that she took offence to his previous comment.

"You want to fit in…?" Hermione surmised correctly.

"Essentially, yes..." He replied with an exhausted sigh.

After a short pause filled with comfortable silence, she yet again asked being unable to keep her curiosity in check, "How often do you use deception?" The question sounded as if she was probing him for an answer.

He answered with a chuckle, "You don't have to worry about me deceiving you if that's what you're getting at."

"Hermione, you still haven't told me what kind of calculation you're doing in here and what exactly have you been up to." He continued in the flow of the conversation.

"Oh…, I almost forgot. I'm going to create a runic circle and then enchant it with a series of spells so that the spells won't deteriorate even if we aren't in the castle. Usually, spells that we cast will wear off in a limited time or if the user is not in close proximity to keep powering it. And when we enchant something, it'll stay that way until we can't fuel it with our magic anymore, which may be due to numerous reasons. As such, once we enchant this via the runic circle, it won't wear off, ever; it'll use the magic of the castle and stay active, so we won't have to keep powering it, that's why I need the precise values of the variables in my calculation." She answered very excitedly.

He was both impressed confused, "Brilliant idea…! But, you do understand that we know next to nothing about runes, right?"

"Actually Harry, I've read lots of books on Runology and I'm confident that I can create a runic circle, on my own. I thought you read a lot of books?" She asked back honestly, while not realising that she had just insulted him.

He responded in a slightly irritated tone, due to the direction of where the conversation was heading to, "I mostly stick to topics related to our current subjects. And with all due respect, Hermione, I've read a lot of books on Transfiguration and that doesn't necessarily make me a specialist in the art, now does it?"

"I can do this, Harry." She replied confidently.

And he stared into her eyes for a long minute while maintaining his silence and also making her nervous in the process, he finally agreed, "Okay…"

"Okay?"

"Okay! If you're confident then I won't stop you…, again, it wouldn't hurt for us to try, now would it? And besides, it isn't like we're under limited time or anything, in fact, we've all the time in the world to finish this." She smiled brightly at his trust in her abilities and so she briskly continued with the measurements, all the while with a permanent smile etched on her face.

"And by the way, did you clear some of the rocks?" He interrupted her again.

"Yes, I did."

"How so…?"

"I used the 'Banishment Charm' to expel the smaller rocks away to anywhere we desire." She replied to him enthusiastically.

"Bloody hell, why didn't I think of that…?" He loudly berated himself.

"Language…! And just out of curiosity, what did you think of?"

He was a little embarrassed to answer since the solution he came up with was, in other words, impractical, but he replied anyway, "I was thinking of ways to sneak the rocks out of the castle and then dump them near the forest." Hermione unusually didn't have an answer to his reply.

He then drew his wand out and he spoke evenly, while he twisted his wand in a semicircular wave, "Depulso…" And instantly, half the larger boulders disappeared into thin air, while the smaller rocks which were atop the boulders fell down, due to the boulders' subsequent disappearance. Soon after his charm, two more steps of the stairs beneath the rocks became completely evident and the third step was partially visible.

Hermione was a little incredulous that her best friend effortlessly 'displaced' almost four huge boulders, with each one of them being almost half their size, while only using the 'Banishing Charm' once, whereas it took her three hours yesterday and countless attempts to vanish half the amount of rocks. She was half expecting him to question her about the 'Banishing Charm' in the first place, she hadn't expected him to know it, but not only that he somehow knew how to cast the charm; he also did it much more effectively than her attempt at it. However, she chose not to voice her thoughts to him.

She interrupted him with one of her curious questions, "Harry, I've been meaning to ask you something. How exactly did you find this passageway?"

He pretended as if he didn't hear her question, as he tried to come up with an answer, "What…?"

"How did you find this passageway?"

"Actually, I overheard a few men talking about secret passages whilst my stay in Leaky Cauldron before school. Those men were zonked like most of the customers in there, so I assume they had no idea of what they were talking about in the first place." He lied very efficiently, "And that's how I found out about this…"

In fact, the truth was that a few days after school began, one morning he simply remembered the passageway's existence. Needless to say, he was both confused and baffled at the same time, but when he checked the castle to validate his memory, to his surprise it turned out to be true. He asked his brother about such a secret path inside Hogwarts and his older-self told him that many such pathways existed inside Hogwarts, but he too didn't have a clue to how he remembered something he never knew about before. As such, he had no intention of detailing it to Hermione about all of that either.

"Oh…" She accepted his answer with some difficulty because she very well couldn't ask him what he was doing at the Inn before school rather than being at home with his family.

Soon after that, Hermione finished her measurements and was about to leave the pathway and that's when he noticed the newspaper in his hand and he remembered why he came to find her in the first place. She opened the portrait door and stepped out as he followed behind her eagerly after securing the entrance.

Just as he caught up to her, he held the newspaper in front of her face while irritating her. "What is it, Harry?" She asked irately, as she snatched the newspaper from his hand and started reading the article he was pointing at.

And when she finished reading the article, she asked perplexedly, "Someone tried to break into an empty vault at Gringotts, what's so important about this…?"

"What's important is that I went to that same vault with McGonagall a few days earlier to the break-in and we were the ones who actually emptied it."

"Really…? Why does it matter that someone broke into that vault if you had secured whatever that was inside it earlier?" She sounded both curious and interested, however a little sceptical.

"Aren't you the least bit curious about why someone would want to steal whatever professor McGonagall withdrew from that vault?"

"I am curious, Harry, but if you say whatever that was inside the vault was secured before the burglary, there is no need for us to worry is there? And, what exactly was it that was inside the vault anyway?" She asked curiously yet logically.

"I don't know. All Professor McGonagall took was a small dirty bundle from the vault and besides, that was the only thing inside it anyway. And what I'm saying is if some dark wizard or witch actually went that far as in breaking into Gringotts in search of this bundle, then what's it to say that this person will stop there?"

She contemplated his reasoning for a few minutes and laid her opinion on the matter as she agreed, "Okay I agree, all of this does sound rather dodgy, but what can we possibly do, if we don't even have a clue of what was inside the bundle, in the first place?"

"That's true. Maybe if we can find what it was that McGonagall took from the vault, then perhaps we will have something to go on with." He answered to her carefully.

"Yes, that's the logical thing to do if we're going to investigate. And my question being, how exactly do you propose we do that?"

He looked as if he had some difficulty speaking, but he spoke, "That's the problematic part, I've no idea."

Hermione was already a little occupied with too many things inside her mind, so she sighed and replied, "If it means that much to you, then we can ask professor McGonagall."

"I have a better idea…, we can hang ourselves." He replied mockingly, as he vertically held his clenched right fist directly over his head and his left hand surrounding around his neck, he looked up and subsequently stuck his tongue out as he comically indicated death by hanging.

"Top marks for your acting skills!" She ridiculed back confidently. Unknown to him, Hermione was enjoying every bit of their friendship, to her, it felt like a dream, to have a friend to fight with just for a laugh, someone who would appreciate her and wouldn't deride her for her odd interests or her intellect.

"Thank you very much." He replied back with a fake modest grin, as she, in turn, rolled her eyes and then narrowed both of her eyes at him with a half-smile ever present on her face. She then softly slapped on his left arm just below the elbow to get his complete attention, "I'm starving, let's get something to eat, and then we can talk about our options." With that, they both hurried off to the Great Hall.

* * *

 _ **A Month Later-**_

He was lying awake in his bed waiting for his friends to fall asleep. It has almost been two months since his entry into Hogwarts; he had finally managed to adjust into the atmosphere of the magical world both mentally and physically.

Last week, he and Hermione went to watch the first match of the Interhouse Quidditch Cup along with the entire school. It took him a while to convince Hermione, so to make her come along with him, but he finally convinced her by using the effects of reciprocity. She for the world couldn't see the logic behind watching a Quidditch match, but since he had spent quite a lot of time with her, all in an attempt at pleasing her, she naturally felt obligated to attend the Quidditch match along with him and he used her sense of obligation to his advantage.

However, to their disappointment, Gryffindor lost their first match against Slytherin. From as much as he had seen, he was fairly positive that the Slytherins were a disgraceful bunch. They had singled out both the Gryffindor Chasers very early in the game, and then they literally overpowered the Chasers out by assailing each of them individually, all the while attacking in a group. As the chasers were systematically taken out of the game, they no longer had lead players to score for the team, subsequently, both the Gryffindor beaters, the Weasley twins along with their Keeper/Captain, Oliver Wood, held Gryffindor's defence, making sure that the Slytherins didn't score any more goals. Eventually, the deciding aspect of the match fell to the two Seekers; the first seeker to catch the Snitch would lead his/her team to victory. And the Gryffindor seeker fell short to the team's expectations and the Slytherin won by a huge margin of points.

When he relayed the match's stats to his older-self, his brother was for some reason very outraged and confused. His older-self stated that the first Quidditch match is usually conducted in the early weeks of November and so he wondered what could have happened that caused the school to change the schedule. He also insisted that Slytherins are a bunch of brutes and that he had to find a way to become the team's seeker as soon as possible, so to give Gryffindor a fighting chance. And so, since then he had been thinking of ways that would prove his worth to the Captain and become a Seeker.

He was broken off of his idle musing when he heard Neville snoring out loud and he understood that his window at discretion was wide open. He knew that he didn't have to wait any longer because he suspected that his modified 'sleeping mist spell' would most likely knock everyone outside of his 'shielding spell' that surrounded his four-poster bed.

He took his diary from underneath his pillow and he started writing in it, "Are you there?"

The ink of his letters soaked into the page and disappeared and then a reply came back quickly enough, "Of course, where else would I possibly be?"

"Tomorrow's Hallowe'en, have any advice for me?" He asked rather openly because tomorrow night the troll would be unleashed and he wanted to know if there is any last minute detail that he ought to know about.

"I know that you most likely won't heed to this, but please try. Try to avoid anything that's even remotely troublesome. Hallowe'en night is the unluckiest night every year, for 'us' at least. Something troubling will always happen on that night." The reply came and he wasn't surprised.

"Yes…, I know. You've told me that every year since the day _you_ came and nothing of that sort has ever happened." He wrote back amusedly.

"What about that incident on Hallowe'en, two years ago, when Vernon broke your left wrist because of you 'accidentally' kicking Marge's dog…?" The reply came just as quickly.

"I knew you would say that. It was an isolated incident. Uncle Vernon didn't break my wrist intentionally, he pushed me and I fell on top of my hand, during which time, my wrist was twisted to an odd angle _on the fall_." He wrote back not really trusting his brother's words while stressing the last few words.

The reply came quickly, it strangely felt forceful and he understood it as a warning to take things seriously, "And that's what I refer to be 'being unlucky'. If you were lucky, you would have fallen and nothing would have happened to your wrist. And don't forget, Vernon didn't even bother taking you to the hospital, he simply yelled you off back to the cupboard. I had to instruct you on how to properly set the bone and you had to manually realign your own wrist bone to its original position, which I don't have to remind you is a very painful process. And besides, if it weren't for the 'bone-mending spell' that I had taught you earlier, it wouldn't have healed overnight. Do you still believe that you were lucky? …In any case, I appreciate you not holding a grudge; I see that 'my last wish' on you holding on to your compassion has gotten through to you. Just make sure that you're careful on Hallowe'en, we always have some sort of rotten luck on that day or night."

"Okay, okay, I accept. Hallowe'en is unlucky, I get it! Now tell me, do I have anything to worry about since I have the knowledge of how things may unravel or should I stay clear of any trouble of sorts despite me knowing it?" He wrote back wanting to settle any doubt.

"As I told you earlier, make sure to avoid anything that's troublesome, it's wise to be cautious."

"By troublesome, you mean the troll?" He wrote back quickly.

"Yes…, among other things."

"I thought you said that you bonded with Hermione and Ron over the troll incident? Don't you want me to, you know, go through it with Hermione, just to be on the safe side?" He wrote being a little confused about avoiding the incident altogether, as he had heard many times that going through an event just for its name's sake is what he'll have to do _in the future_.

However, the reply made sense, "No, I don't want you anywhere near that troll. Yes, me, Ron and Hermione, we bonded over that incident, there is no doubt about it, but we were kind of lucky and you deliberately putting yourself in danger is called being reckless. Besides, you've already developed a friendship with her and managed to keep away from Ron. And above all…, do you want to face a twelve-foot tall, Mountain Troll?"

"Not really…"

"Good… Now tell me, what's your plan? How are you planning to enter the Quidditch team?"

"I don't have a plan yet. I'll figure something out." The reply strangely seemed incomplete yet somehow complete. The time-traveller felt an undercurrent of disappointment in his younger self's written reply, a feeling that he was sure to be a result of a completely unrelated topic.

"Okay, spill…what's bothering you?" His letters disappeared and another question appeared from his brother.

"Nothing…" He wrote back hurriedly.

A reply came before he even finished, "NOW…"

"It's just that, all of this feels very strange." He wrote his answer being very confused on his choices and he didn't know why.

"Time-travel is a fickle thing, it's supposed to be strange and you won't be able to help it." The diffusing reply came quickly as if it was already preconceived, "Now, worry no more, use the 'dream-eating spell' that I taught you and go to bed."

The consciousness of the older Harry Potter in the diary chose not to reveal one thing. He usually got emotionally troubled on the nights before Hallowe'en. This phenomenon apparently started on the night his parents died and it happened during the nights before every single Hallowe'en until Voldemort's resurrection during summer of 1995. This phenomenon was particularly overpowering after he started at Hogwarts. However, after Voldemort's resurrection, it happened almost every other night and not just on the nights proceeding to that of the Hallowe'en. He didn't want his younger-self to know of this just yet, mainly in order to give some semblance of hope to the young mind, if only a fake one at that.

With that, the eleven-year-old boy closed the diary and stuffed it inside his trunk and went to bed after having cast the 'dream-eating spell' on himself, so to get a good night's sleep.

* * *

 _ **Charms Class-**_

"The Levitation Charm is one of the first spells learnt by any young witch or wizard. With the charm, a witch or wizard can make things fly with the flick of a wand. The charm is an excellent test of your magical skills, wand control and above all, patience." Susan paused as she read loudly to the whole class from the book of spells.

Professor Flitwick was continuously nodding his head at the reading girl and Susan continued, "The Levitation Charm was invented in 1544 by warlock Jarleth Hobart who mistakenly believed that he had at last succeeded in doing what wizardkind had so far failed to do, and learnt to fly. However, as his attempt at levitating himself proved successful he also gathered that while in mid-air he had no control of his own movements, much less the ability of flight. He eventually realised that he had invented a spell that would lift objects into the air and could cause them to hover for varying lengths of time, depending on their weight and the skill of the spellcaster. This charm ought not to be seen as a joke spell. It can be most useful in duels and can lift physical obstacles and can even levitate small creatures (though this is likely to confuse any poor animal and is certainly not to be encouraged)." The plump blonde girl finished her recitation as she beamed brightly and took her seat.

"Thank you, Miss Bones. Two points for Hufflepuff…" Flitwick awarded the beaming girl with two points for her recitation.

The half-Goblin professor continued on from there, "The incantation is very important and it has to be pronounced very clearly, Wing-GAR-dee-um Levi-O-sa."

"I want you all to speak clearly, Wing-GAR-dee-um Levi-O-sa." Professor Flitwick spoke and the whole class chorused simultaneously, "WING-GAR-DEE-UM LEVI-O-SA…"

"Very good, now with wands... The hand movement must be precise, a gentle swish and flick." The Charms professor instructed the children and continued on with the instruction.

Harry wasn't paying attention to the class, instead, he was wondering about how to prove that he was quality Quidditch Seeker material to the Gryffindor team Captain, Oliver Wood. Today morning, on his way to the Great hall for breakfast, he saw the notice about how there will be another Quidditch trial to determine a new Seeker for the next match. Apparently, Oliver and their previous Seeker had a verbal dispute after the first match and the Quidditch Captain had sacked the sixth-year Seeker from the team for his insolence.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Ron shouting while waving his long arms like a windmill, "Wingardium Leviosa." He would have preferred to sit alone with Hermione because she herself was a handful, but unfortunately for him, Ron, Dean and Seamus had come to sit beside him and Hermione.

"You're saying it all wrong." He almost had an instant headache when he heard Hermione snap at Ron, he had hoped that this situation may not come about but evidently, he was wrong, "It's Wing-GAR-dee-um Levi-O-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

Moments later, he placed his left hand on the side of his head in irritation, as he heard Ron's angry counter being delivered as a dare, "You do it, then, if you're so clever. Go on…"

He turned his head and glanced at the pair, Hermione took her wand and gave a stiff swish followed by a precise flick and she iterated the incantation very clearly, "Wingardium Leviosa." She then pointed the tip of her wand on the feather and it began levitating higher. He almost wanted to slam his head on the table when he saw Hermione's smug condescending gaze being directed at an annoyed Ronald following her success at the 'Levitation Charm'.

"Well done, Miss Granger. Five points for Gryffindor…" Professor Flitwick encouragingly awarded five points to Hermione for her success.

Ron being irritated by Hermione's cheek and threatened by her high intellect rudely looked away, the boy turned his attention towards his friends Dean and Seamus who had witnessed Hermione's instructions and they tried to cast the spell again, but to no avail. Ron's mood was again elevated when he realised that neither Dean nor Seamus could properly cast the charm, he understood that he wasn't the only one who had trouble with the charm.

Ronald, who felt the undeniable need to insult the bushy-haired girl for showing him up, he turned to face his other roommate, while deliberately looking past Hermione, who was sitting between him and the raven-haired boy and so he bluntly asked, "Why do you put up with her, mate?"

Harry, on the other hand, felt a lump in his throat that he just couldn't swallow, when he heard Ron's open-faced yet hypocritically snide question, the only thing he could come up with was a weak attempt at postponing an awkward moment, "Excuse me…"

He kept staring at Ron for he had lost his tongue. He knew Ron would be rude to anyone who may make him look daft, especially Hermione, but he hadn't expected his roommate to be this blunt at it. He felt like he wanted to melt away and disappear due to the awkwardness because atop his inability to quickly answer Ron's question Hermione too was looking at him hopefully, she was clearly expecting him to defend her. He had no problem with defending her, but the ginger-haired fool's surprisingly clever question was what had him baffled, it was a question he himself had often pondered on about. Hermione often irritated him too, but he had learned to tolerate her eccentricities and appreciate her enthusiasm, above all, he had somehow warmed up to her and he had no idea why. She was the first person he had actually connected with, as a friend, apart from his brother of course, however, it had happened unconsciously, almost instinctively, in his mind the idea of not befriending Hermione simply felt wrong. Hence, the answer to Ron's very simple question was overly complicated and there was no simple way to answer it.

Thankfully, he got a moment's distraction from Seamus to gather his wits so to speak. There was a momentary flash of light that encompassed the whole class and the noise of a small explosion followed by a wisp of black smoke erupting from the burning feather beside Dean who was sitting in between Ron and Seamus.

Everyone in the class simultaneously turned their heads to gaze at Seamus, who had somehow managed to set fire to the feather that he was using to practice the 'Levitation Charm', while Dean was trying to put the fire out by repeatedly slamming his 'Book of Spells' on the burning feather.

As he gathered his wits for a few minutes, he noticed Ron turning back to him, while waiting for an answer; the ginger-haired weasel was hoping that his answer would put Hermione in her place. He picked up his wand from the table and he gave a smooth swish and flick as he spoke, "Wingardium Leviosa." He then gave a tap on the long white feather with the tip of his wand. And the feather slowly ascended up in the air, unlike Hermione whose feather floated higher and higher, his feather stopped in mid-air and floated exactly to his eye level, and then he placed his wand back on the table and controlled its motion wandlessly.

He consciously connected his eyes with Hermione's and he replied casually while ignoring Ron's surprised gaze at his success, "You're right…, it is easier to cast the charm when the incantation is pronounced correctly." She beamed at him brightly and visibly breathed out in obvious relief. The Weasley boy, who was proved wrong, stared at him in disbelief and then he once again rudely turned away to hide his embarrassment.

Soon the class ended, his dormmates with the exception of Neville were the first ones to exit the class. He followed behind the trio, while Hermione went to meet Flitwick to clarify some doubts regarding enchantments. Dean and Seamus were following behind Ron whose ego had just taken a huge blow.

As soon as he caught up with his friends, Ron turned to face him and almost yelled, "What's wrong with you? You were supposed to side with us, not with that know-it-all."

He stepped closer to the ginger-haired boy and he met the boy's gaze as sternly as possible and then he spoke evenly, "I didn't come here to argue with you…, no, I came here to make a point, Ron. If you insult someone just because your ego can't handle someone smarter disagreeing with you, then you're no better than Malfoy, whom you happen to hate so much. And so, if I see you insulting anyone else, then you'll regret it."

He meant every word he spoke because Ron was turning out to be the type of boy his brother had mentioned to him about. A person who would normally skive off in classes and refuse to study himself while making it impossible for the people around him to concentrate on their studies. He would have preferred to be in such a social circle if his brother hadn't come back in time or if he hadn't influenced him to focus on the present for setting up a better future. But now, he was more involved with the responsibility that lay on his shoulders rather than simply living his life to his heart's desires because he knew that he would have enough time for it once the upcoming calamity is put to an end.

He also mentally scheduled to have a serious talk with Hermione and make some things clear, but just not today. He didn't want to upset her in any way, especially today, with the possibility of a loose troll rampaging through the school later tonight. With that, he stepped forward and pushed past the trio as he walked away. He walked around the corner and disappeared up the staircase.

* * *

 _ **Hallowe'en Feast (Great Hall)-**_

He, Hermione and a few others entered the well-lit and vastly decorated great hall and he was instantly entranced by the sight that consumed his senses.

The entire hall was lit by thousands and thousands of candles inside carved pumpkins that served as illumining lanterns floating in mid-air over the four long tables. A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The usual velvety black ceiling dotted with stars that resembled the beautiful night sky was shadowed by clouds with the occasional stray lightning that danced between the clouds as it moved, giving the hall an ominous and mysterious ambience.

They walked to the Gryffindor table and took their seats; he sat beside George while Hermione sat beside him. Slowly, students walked in and filled the house tables. As soon as the teachers took their seat at the staff table, the feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.

As soon as the dishes appeared, everyone, he noticed heartily dug into the feast. As everyone in the hall began feasting lavishly, he watched silently as he nibbled on a slice of carrot cake while occasionally taking a sip from his goblet of pumpkin juice.

He needed a distraction as his mind started wavering to some troubling thoughts and so he decided to initiate a conversation with George, "Say, George…?"

His whispering tone earned the attention of both the Weasley brothers and also of Lee Jordan, they all leaned in towards him and he asked, "Why are those sixth years constantly scowling at Oliver?"

"Did you hear about what happened to our Seeker, Harry?" Lee asked quickly beating the twins to it.

"Yeah, I heard. The Seeker and Oliver had a disagreement of some sort and as the team captain, Oliver sacked him. I also heard that he's going to conduct another selection trial for the seeker position." He replied with whatever he knew of it.

"That's if you put it mildly. The Seeker, his name is Balthazar Williams. He's in his sixth-year. He used to be the team's Chaser when Charlie was in-charge. Since Charlie graduated last year, he was expecting to get the Captaincy as he is the senior-most player amongst us all; however, McGonagall offered the post to Oliver, which caused a few problems between him and Oliver. When Oliver took over as the captain, we needed a new seeker to fill-in Charlie's place and so Oliver gave Williams that spot, mostly to keep him in check, if you ask me." George elaborated the true cause of conflict with a little more detail.

Fred took over from there and continued, "But Oliver's plan backfired and during the last match, Williams did next to nothing to help the defence. Those two had problems even before the last match, during our last Quidditch practice, Williams criticised Oliver's decision on how to maintain a simple defensive formation."

"So that's why Oliver sacked him…?" He asked and all three boys nodded their heads in agreement.

"Why all the questions about Oliver, mate?" George asked being curious about why he had brought it up in the first place. As all three boys stared at him expecting an answer, he grinned cheekily as he didn't want to answer the question.

"You can tell us anything, Harry." Fred tried to coerce him.

He laughed as he replied with blatant sarcasm dripping through his reply, "Of course, I can…"

Lee signalled all of them to lean in and he along with the twins leaned as Lee whispered, "I heard one of the Slytherin first-years attacked McGonagall."

He reacted out loud and then he paused as he realised his mistake, "What…?" He then softly asked back in evident shock, "Why would a first-year attack a teacher? And how...?"

"Save the questions until I finish…" Lee said and he nodded and the third year continued, "Apparently, one of the Slytherin first-years found an unattended cat roaming outside Transfiguration corridor, yesterday."

"Ooh…" Both the twins bustled having understood what must have happened.

Seeing his confused look, George added shortly, "McGonagall is an Animagus. She can turn herself into a cat at will."

And so, it dawned on him, he grinned brightly along with the three boys while replying, "Oh…"

Lee continued again, "The Slytherin actually pelted the cat with various rocks. How he got a supply of rocks or why he pelted the cat that I don't know. But, I do know that McGonagall has given the boy detention for the rest of the year." All four broke into chuckles as the Gryffindor commentator finished his narration.

He turned away and took another bite of his carrot cake. He subtly beheld the staff table for a brief moment and made sure that Quirrell was still missing. It was halfway through the feast and the Defence professor hadn't yet run in through the entrance screaming about a troll. And he was becoming increasingly nervous by each passing minute.

He was broken off of his musing by Hermione, "Harry, are you alright?"

He turned to look at her and he forced a smile as he replied, "Oh, I'm fine."

"You look anxious…" She stated quite surely.

"Why would I be anxious?" He asked with a slight grin, trying his best at derailing her. However, she simple narrowed her eyes a little and held him in a suspicious gaze.

She moved closer and spoke in a lower yet worried tenor, "Harry, you haven't finished your carrot cake or pumpkin juice. Are you feeling ill? You've clearly lost your appetite."

He sighed out loud and he spoke as if he was hesitant to begin, it earned Hermione's complete attention, "Today's my parents' 10th Death Anniversary and I'm sitting here, in the great hall and having a Halloween feast. To me…, it feels like I'm being indelicate."

"Harry, I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have tried to pry... It's all, my fault."

"Don't be, how could you have possibly known, it's alright." He waved it off casually as he had spoken half-truth in order to derail her off of the actual reason, the least he could do was not to make her feel guilty. Fortunately for him, his half-truth had caused her to feel that she out of line and so she decided to let him be, for the rest of the night. It was exactly what he had wanted, an hour to quietly eat and observe.

The rest of the night was uneventful; Quirrell didn't come running into the hall screaming troll, in fact, the defence professor hadn't even attended the feast, the man was missing. He for the world couldn't understand what could have caused these changes.

The feast ended and he raced back to the dorm before everyone.

* * *

 _ **Boys' Dormitory-**_

"What do you mean, it didn't happen?" The translucent image of his older-self almost yelled at him.

"I'm telling you, Quirrell didn't come crashing in through the feast as you said he would, he didn't even attend the banquet."

There was a long silence that prevailed between the pair, "This changes everything. I didn't expect there to be such a drastic change in the timeline this early on. We must have unknowingly triggered something to affect this change." The war veteran paused for a moment in deep thought.

He could almost see the levers and cogs twisting and turning inside his older-self's head. "Okay…, things are changing…and we'll have to adapt accordingly. I want to you do something that will confirm if everything is in place as it's supposed to…, will you do it?" The veteran asked carefully.

"What do you want me to do?" He confidently asked having already taken the responsibility.

"Tomorrow night, I want you to go to the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side and explore all the rooms. I want you to check if there is a Cerberus in one of the rooms with a huge magical harp beside it?"

"A Cerberus…?"

"A huge, ferocious three-headed dog…"

"I know what a Cerberus is, I'm just curious to why there would be one here, in Hogwarts, in one of the rooms on the third-floor corridor to be exact?" He asked back being a little annoyed.

"Do you remember me mentioning about an underground chamber that held the philosopher's stone and how I had to go through an obstacle course of sorts to reach the stone?" The time-traveller asked seriously.

"Vaguely…! You were more interested in explaining the real reason behind the obstacle course rather than about the things that were in it. Or about the stone itself or what it does exactly or why Voldemort would need it in the first place. From what you said, I thought the obstacle course was about something else entirely, and I quote, 'Dumbledore's way of testing me, so to find out if I could be moulded into a sacrificial piece in his elaborate chess game'."

"Yes, it was Dumbledore's way of testing my mind and body." The older man agreed tiredly.

"Okay, so what's it got to do with anything?"

The time-traveller was in no mood for games; as such he replied impassively, "What's important is that the Cerberus happens to be the first obstacle, it guards the entrance to the Chamber that holds the stone. Do you understand?"

"I understand. I'll check all the rooms on the corridor as soon as possible." He replied intending to finish the task at midnight tonight.

The older man having the sensed his younger-self's enthusiasm spoke very sternly, "No Harry, not tonight. Tomorrow night or the nights after, but definitely not tonight..." The man repeated again in order to make the message clear.

"Why not…?"

"I can't say anything for sure, but with the information at hand, Quirrell has either changed his plan or delayed it. The only person in the castle who could influence him to do that is, Dumbledore! If Quirrell has decided not to go after the stone tonight, if such a man fears of the risks, then you should fear of it too. You're not to go checking the corridor tonight. Am I making myself clear?" The war veteran asked without an ounce of playfulness in his face or tone, conveying the message that he wasn't joking.

A very subdued answer came, "Yes…"

"Good!"

"I need to think. We have influenced some major changes in the events of this timeline. I didn't take it seriously when you mentioned Minerva's appearance at Privet Drive instead of Hagrid's, but now I'm considering everything. Let's not waste all the stored magic in the diary. Go to sleep." The war veteran time-traveller voiced distractedly and he disappeared.

He closed the diary and he hid it under his bed. Once, he was sure that the diary was hidden; he opened the curtain of his four-poster bed and checked if everything was normal. When he was sure that there was nothing out of the ordinary, he slipped under his sheets hoping to sleep well for the night.

* * *

 _ **Hi guys, I hope I didn't lose your interest 'completely'. I wanted to update sooner but I got caught in work. I barely get any time to think the chapters ahead, once I get the minute details of the story figured out, it's only a matter of time before I update.**_

 _ **In any case, I'm sorry for the huge delay. I think I'll be free by the end of this month, after that I'll start writing actively. I personally thank 'Therio' for reminding me to update.**_

 _ **Until next time,**_

 _ **Thank You…**_


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